Employment polarisation – the decline of middle-skill routine occupations relative to both ends of the skill distribution – is usually documented from repeated cross-sections. However, the time evolution of cross-sections is driven by workers’ flows across occupational categories and in and out of the labour market. Drawing on an administrative panel that follows French workers over 1984–2021, this column shows that polarisation emerged through a collapse in entry into routine jobs from non-employment, not through displacement of incumbent routine workers. The findings redirect policy attention from protecting existing jobs towards the entry margin.



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