• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.53-95
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• 2015

This paper first constructs an occupation code-skill match for the Korean labor market by following Autor-Dorn classification on the tasks framework. Over the last 34 years, middle-skill jobs have vanished enormously, while high-skill and low-skill jobs have both increased. Also, jobs have polarized more rapidly in recessions and changed uniquely by pushing old workers into middle and low-skilled jobs and the inter-sector reallocation of workers. Furthermore, jobless recoveries in the recent business cycle could have been alleviated considerably if job polarization had been mitigated.