Digitalization and change in the global division of labor: Industrial work in transition

The contribution discusses the impact of digitalization approaches in industrial companies and their implications for the global division of labour and work. It proceeds by investigating the scope and character of automation and its impact on the relationship between production locations in high and low wage countries. Contrary to expectations frequently voiced in public discourse the author does not identify a major push in automation in manufacturing industries (that would make a reshoring of production viable), because digitalization strategies rather concern new paths of flexibilization than automation. The effects on the geographies of production of technological change, however, result in new strategies of specialization and modifications of industrial governance, namely a refined division of labour between innovation-intensive production sites and their counterparts in the periphery.