Accounting for technology, trade and final consumption in employment : an Input-Output decomposition

What are the driving forces of changes in employment in France over the last thirty years and how can we explain skill-biased changes in employment? Based on Input-Output analysis we provide a decomposition of changes in employment between the contributions of three channels : technology, trade and final consumption. Our goal is to assess these contributions to employment changes by skill level over the period 1982-2010. Our analysis builds on textbook methodologies of structural decomposition, but innovative data: INSEE's Input-Output tables both in current and previous year prices, based on the new ESA2010 concepts. Our main findings are that technology shows marked skill-bias, whereas trade and final consumption have limited skill-bias effects. The development of high-technology manufacturing and R&D over the last thirty years mainly contributes to this skill-biased change in employment. We find a positive contribution of trade to employment at every skill level.