Has COVID-19 accelerated the digital transformation on the labor market?

Project partners: Michael Böhm (University of Bonn and IZA), Georg Graetz (Uppsala University and IZA), Terry Gregory (IZA and ZEW), Florian Lehmer (IAB)

Funding: IZA Collaborative Research Grant

Duration: 01.09.2020 – 28.02.2022

This project investigates whether the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation. Research will study how the firm-level relationship between technology adoption and labor demand has changed with the COVID-19 crisis and whether technologically more advanced firms are less affected. The project will exploit a new data base that includes pre- and post-crises survey information on technology adoption at the firm-level in Germany and which is linked to administrative data records from the Federal Employment Agency. The data base allows unique firm-level investigations on how firms and workers adopt to COVID-19 shock in digitalization.