Effects of New Technologies on Work: The Case of Additive Manufacturing

The authors study the effects on work of additive manufacturing (AM), an emerging technology that may replace significant segments of traditional manufacturing (TM). Compared to TM, AM is more integrated and offers greater flexibility in design, materials, and customizability; thus, it should entail more demanding tasks and higher skill levels. The authors analyze vacancies for AM and TM workers, focusing on plants that posted vacancies in both technologies to control for factors that may affect the content of job postings. Findings show that AM jobs are more complex (with more non-routine analytic and less routine cognitive content) in comparison to TM jobs, and AM jobs require more high-level technical skills and more reasoning skills. The relative differences are larger for lower-skill workers (operators) than for high-skill workers (engineers). The authors conclude that AM is an upskilling technology that is skill biased in favor of low-skill workers and therefore reduces the skill gap.