Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/51688 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5666
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper introduces indicators about the division of labour to measure and interpret recent trends in the structure of employment in the Netherlands. Changes in the division of labour occur at three different levels: the level of the individual worker, the level of the industry and the spatial level. At each level the organisation of work is determined by an equilibrium of forces that glue tasks together or unbundle them. Communication costs are the main force for clustering or gluing together tasks; comparative advantage stimulates unbundling and specialisation. The estimates suggest that on average the Netherlands has witnessed unbundling in the period 1996-2005, which implies that advantages of specialisation have increased. These developments explain to a considerable extent changes in the structure of employment. Especially at the spatial level it explains a substantial part of the increase in offshoring tasks abroad.
Subjects: 
division of labour
tasks
technological change
the Netherlands
JEL: 
J23
J24
O33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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