Sari Pekkala Kerr, Ph.D., and colleagues studied trends in job polarization in Finland — comparing jobs involving low-level service tasks to those involving high-level abstract tasks.
The research team found that the number of jobs involving low-level service work increased mostly through the creation of new firms, while the high-level abstract work increased largely within existing firms.
Their findings showed that the polarizing trend is affected by globalization, including outsourcing. For example, firms that outsourced tasks abroad tended to lay off production workers, while firms that participated in domestic outsourcing often reduced cognitive and service employees.
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