Speaking during a seminar held to promote his recent study, “Analysis of Inter-industry Effects of Technological Change on Employment,” at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), Lenger said: “The first perception is that technological change increases unemployment. However, there is another mechanism that replaces the negative impact of technological change on employment: Decreasing costs lead to an increase in production. Employment created by increasing production cancels out the loss of labor due to technological change,” he told Today’s Zaman.
When asked about how this positive impact seen in one sector influences other sectors, Lenger responded, “As inter-industry relations are not very strong in Turkey, I found in my research that this positive impact remained limited to only the sector where the technological change took place.” Even though production in Turkey is mostly labor intensive, the country still has a serious unemployment problem, Lenger said, adding that this situation has given rise to questions such as whether adopting a more technology-intensive production model would lead to increased unemployment. “However, we can say that technological change, by increasing production, eliminates its negative impact on employment,” he explained, calling on firms to invest more in technology.
