Labor Market Impacts of Covid-19 in the Digital Transformation

Project partners: Melanie Arntz (ZEW and University of Heidelberg), Michael Böhm (University of Bonn and IZA), Terry Gregory (IZA and ZEW), Florian Lehmer (IAB), Britta Matthes (IAB), Ulrich Zierahn (Utrecht University and ZEW)

Funding: Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Berlin

Duration: 15.02.2021 – 14.02.2024

The aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of the link between digitalization and the labor market effects of Covid-19. For this, the project team will develop a database that contains both information on establishment’s investments into modern technologies (artificial intelligence, industry 4.0, etc.) and information on those establishment’s employees from administrative data (e.g. employment status, wages, education, etc.). The starting point of the project is the representative firm survey conducted in 2016 before the Covid-19 pandemic among 2032 German service and production firms (IAB-ZEW Arbeitswelt 4.0 Betriebsbefragung) to be extended together with IZA by a second wave after the Covid-19 shock. This will enable to examine adaptation processes in establishments as a result of technology investments in greater detail. In particular, it will be possible to determine whether the Covid-19 Shock has led to increased digitization or how an accelerated digitization affects the labor market and whether digitized firms are more resilient to such crises.