Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/335197 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IHS Working Paper No. 62
Publisher: 
Institut für Höhere Studien - Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), Vienna
Abstract: 
How do economic crises reshape firms' skill demand through changes in the organization of work? Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a shock to workplace practices, this paper examines whether short-term disruptions prompt lasting shifts in job requirements. We draw on 11 million German online job vacancies from 2017-2024 and implement an event-study design that exploits pre-pandemic variation in workfrom-home feasibility across occupations. This approach identifies firms' differential exposure to remote-work constraints based on the occupational mix of their job postings. We find that crisis-induced shifts in skill demand were mainly short-lived, but one adjustment persisted: a lasting rise in interactive requirements, reflecting the emergence of hybrid collaboration. This form of organizational change contrasts with the technology-driven automation emphasized in prior crises and was shaped mainly by structural factors -digital infrastructure, firm size, and sectoral exposure -rather than by cyclical variation. Our results show that temporary shocks can trigger selective and enduring shifts in firms' skill demand through evolving workplace organization.
Subjects: 
Online Job Ads
Skill Demand
Work-from-Home Feasibility
COVID-19
Task Reallocation
Event Study
JEL: 
J23
J24
J63
O33
URL of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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