Treffer: Comments Appreciated Not for Quotation Computerization and Skills: Examples from a Car Dealership

England Region, and managers, technicians, service representatives, salespersons and parts staff of the “Sam Adams Motors ” automobile group without whom this paper could not have been written. 1I. Computers and the Labor Market How do computers affect the demand for labor? The traditional answer is that computers will replace large numbers of jobs and so may create mass unemployment (e.g. Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution (cite to come), Leontief and Duchin (1986)). Jeremy Rifkin (1993) offers a representative quote: “The point that needs to be emphasized is that, even allowing for short-term dips in the unemployment rate, the long-term trend is toward ever higher rates of unemployment ” (p. 11). In the near term, at least, the answer does not seem correct. As this paper is being written, the computer revolution is well underway and the unemployment rate stands at 4.3%. A second answer with a long history2, holds that computers drive skill-biased technical change. Here, the computerization of work in a firm shifts relative demand toward higher skilled