Goldman Sachs' analysis of individual-level labor market records across four decades indicates that displacement driven by technological change produces persistent economic setbacks for affected workers. The study followed more than 20,000 people born in the 1950s-60s and the 1980s using the National Longitudinal Surveys, identifying which occupations were disrupted by technology in each decade starting in 1980.
The research finds that workers exiting technology-disrupted occupations take roughly one month longer on average to secure new employment than workers who lost jobs in less-affected roles. When they do return to work, these individuals encounter real earnings declines exceeding 3 percent. By contrast, those displaced from more stable occupations show negligible changes in real earnings upon reemployment.
Goldman highlights occupational downgrading as a central channel behind the observed outcomes. Workers whose jobs were eliminated by technological shifts are more likely to transition into routine roles that demand fewer analytical and interpersonal skills. Because the same technological forces that destroyed their prior positions also reduced the market value of the skills they had cultivated, displaced workers often accept lower-skilled jobs that pay less.
Over the decade following job loss, the study reports that real earnings for technology-displaced workers increase nearly 10 percentage points less than for workers who were never displaced, and about 5 percentage points less than for workers displaced from other occupations. The likelihood of encountering another spell of unemployment remains persistently elevated for the technology-displaced group.
The effects extend beyond labor income. Displacement early in a worker's career is associated with slower accumulation of household wealth, driven in part by delays in homeownership and postponements in forming households. These delays indicate that the economic consequences of technological displacement ripple into broader measures of financial stability and life-cycle milestones.
The impact is heterogeneous across demographic groups. Younger workers, those with college degrees and workers in urban areas experience cumulative real earnings losses that are approximately half the size of losses suffered by other technology-displaced workers. Shorter tenure at the point of displacement also corresponds with more favorable outcomes, a pattern consistent with greater transferability of skills among shorter-tenured employees.
Goldman Sachs' work points to retraining programs as an effective mitigant. Individuals who participate in retraining face smaller labor-market setbacks, in part because retraining supports moves into occupations that require more analytical capabilities and better complement information and communication technology.
Economic downturns amplify the costs of technological displacement. During recessions, firms disproportionately cut routine jobs, widening the gap for technology-displaced workers by about three additional weeks of unemployment on average, and increasing by roughly 5 percentage points both the chance of subsequent unemployment and the probability of exiting the labor force.
Taken together, the results portray technological displacement as a source of durable disadvantage for many workers, with clear variation by age, education, tenure and geography. Where retraining opportunities exist and where workers possess more transferable skills, the consequences are noticeably smaller; where recessions intersect with routine-job cuts, the penalties for displaced workers grow materially larger.