Where Have All the (Boomer) Routine Workers Gone?

Abstract This paper examines the employment outcomes of a cohort of non-college educated individuals who exit employment from occupations most exposed to automation risk. The analysis employs a novel set of granular task measures estimated from the detailed job attributes in the Occupational Information Network (O*NET). The granularity enables a rich characterization of non-routine work and task mobility choices for those without a college degree. The data yield multiple types of interpersonal, decision-making, cognitive, and technical tasks. Employing the granular tasks to analyze the employment outcomes for non-college educated workers who transition out of routine work, this study finds (1) the granular measures detect abstract tasks performed intensively in a range of skill contexts, (2) when exiting routine intensive work, non-college propensity to enter abstract work is just under 65 %, and (3) approximately one-quarter of those entries are into tasks yielding average wage gains for those making that transition.