Automation, offshoring, and the role of public policies

We provide comprehensive evidence on the consequences of automation and offshoreability on the career of unemployed workers and the role of public policies. Using almost two decades of administrative data for Austria, we find that risk of automation is reducing the job finding probability; a problem which has increased over the past years. We show that this development is associated with increasing re-employment wages and job stability. Taken together, our findings imply a trade off between quantity and quality in these jobs. Provided training is beneficial in counteracting the negative impact of automation on the job finding rate but we find mixed effects in terms of post-unemployment wages.