Field of study and occupational mismatch : how has employment been affected by computerization in Canada?

Abstract

Nowadays, technology is a necessity for people because it serves a variety of functions in the modern society and has improved significantly the living standards compared to what they were 100 years ago. Although a lot of people obsess about how these amazing advanced technologies can easily handle logistic tasks and make their life easier and better, there are still a lot of researchers and experts who have critiqued the existence of emerging technology. They insist that machine learning technology is not as good as it appears because computerization and digitalization stand a good chance of replacing the human capital and thus a great amount of occupations will face different degrees of computerization risk. In this paper, data sources from Statistic Canada Public Use Microdata File were gathered and the dataset used for analysis is the 2011 National Household Survey. In addition, the author reviewed a large number of articles that mentioned the impact of computerization and how machine learning would displace occupations and further accelerate the mismatch between field of study and occupations. This study examined Frey and Osborne’s (2013) study and categorize occupations into three degrees of computerization risk, which are low, medium and high and it also uncovers how machine learning assuredly increase the mismatch rate for the field of study in relation to the medium risk occupations. The purpose of this paper is to estimate how automation and computerization can destroy a large number of occupations and force the workers into irrelevant areas.