Technological Advances Place Old Jobs At Risk

According to Bruegel, the impact of new technology on old areas of employment is set to become increasingly important in the long run. It has already shaped labor markets in the past and will continue to do so in the future, especially in Europe. Bruegel defines computerisation as a job that is "potentially automatable over some unspecified number of years, perhaps a decade or two" and they have predicted the likelihood of this occurring in the EU.

Technological advances mainly threaten lower-skill industries with tasks in the service sector becoming especially vulnerable to automation. As a result, countries on the EU's periphery are most at risk of computerisation, given Bruegel's argument that computerisation will impact low-skill and low-wage jobs. However, this may actually be offset by the fact that peripheral EU markets have always been slower to adopt new technology as opposed to Europe's more advanced and less at risk core.