Routinization and the Labour Market: Evidence from European Countries

In this chapter, we analyse the routinization process in European countries, using the longitudinal component of the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). Our findings confirm that routine jobs and the routine intensity of jobs are decreasing in time. Further, we study the determinants of routinization, using the EU-SILC data, and find that young individuals are more likely to hold routine jobs, as are workers with lower education or those employed in temporary jobs. This evidence applies for overall Europe as well as for different groups of countries. Finally, routinization represents a driver of unemployment inflows: individuals in routine jobs display, ceteris paribus, a higher probability to become unemployed: a one standard deviation increase in the RTI index entails a 10% increase of getting into unemployment.