Of course, these forces are in various ways linked with the spread of automation and technology. Advances in information and communications technologies have changed job demands in US workplaces directly and also indirectly, by making it increasingly feasible and cost-effective for firms to source, monitor, and coordinate complex production processes at disparate locations worldwide and altering competitive conditions for US manufacturers and workers. This multidimensional complementarity among causal factors makes it both conceptually and empirically difficult to isolate the “pure” effect of any one factorindustries.