THE NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - INTERNATIONAL DIFFUSION AND ITS IMPACT ON EMPLOYMENT AND SKILLS - A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

The technological revolution is creating new goods and services and al tering how and where they are produced. One of the principal issues fo r all countries is how these new technologies will affect employment a nd the composition of skills demand. Surveys the literature to attempt to answer three main questions: to what degree are the new technologi es becoming diffused around the world? How much do they reduce, or inc rease employment? And do they reduce, or increase, the skills required in the labour force? Touches briefly on implications for educational policy. The survey suggests that because of new technologies, new orga nizations of production, changing employment conditions and the develo pment of new sectors of production, the complementarity of general, fo rmal schooling, in-plant training and learning-by-doing to capital inv estment are increasing over time and that general schooling plus on-th e-job training is more complementary to new technologies than is vocat ional schooling. The former combination is more likely to give workers the flexibility they need in such changing conditions.