Student: Nádia Cristina Monteiro da Costa

Title: “Technological Change, New Automation Technologies and Skills: Employment and Unemployment”

Date: 17/12/2025

Time: 10:00

Location: Amphitheatre PA-3, Mathematics Building (-1 floor)

Supervisor: Professor Hugo Miguel Fragoso de Castro Silva (IST)

Co-supervisor: Professor Miguel Simões Torres Preto (IST)

Brief description of the research work: Recent advances in automation and digitalisation have transformed labour markets, reshaping the demand for skills and altering workers’ mobility across occupations. The effects of technological change on aggregate employment levels are well documented, with high-skilled abstract workers often benefiting from complementary technologies, while low-skilled routine workers face higher risk of automation-related displacement. However, the impact of technological change on individual mobility pathways remains underexplored, as each path may imply distinct policy responses. Building on the Routine-Biased Technological Change framework (RBTC) and using cross-country European data from EU-SILC along with the Portuguese employer-employee data from Quadros de Pessoal, this research contributes to the RBTC literature with three empirical studies. These studies examine how contextual factors (employment protection legislation, digital infrastructure, industry and the stock of human capital) and individual human capital characteristics (education and job level skills) shape workers’ transitions between employment and unemployment, across different job types (manual, routine and abstract), each uniquely affected by technology. Overall, the thesis provides evidence to inform labour market, education, and innovation policies aimed at strengthening adaptability, mitigating automation risks, and promoting more inclusive and resilient employment transitions.

Research Unit: IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research