Abstract
This paper explores the impact of robot adoption on European regional labour markets between 1995 and 2015. Specifically, we look at the effect of the usage of industrial robots on jobs and employment structures across European regions. Our estimates suggest that the effect of robots on employment tends to be mostly small and negative during the period 1995–2005 and positive during the period 2005–2015 for the majority of model specifications. Regarding the effects on employment structures, we find some evidence of a mildly polarising effect in the first period, but this finding depends to some extent on the model specifications. In sum, this paper shows that the impact of robots on European labour markets in the last couple of decades has been ambiguous and is not robust. The strength and even the sign of this effect are sensitive to the specifications, as well as to the countries and periods analysed.
Highlights
Few topics have historically attracted so much interest from the general public and the research community alike as the impact of technology on work (Mokyr, Vickers & Ziebarth, 2015)
While the potential negative effect of robot adoption on employment is immediate and likely to be constant over time, the potential positive impact associated with productivity gains manifests itself later (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2018b), which could explain the positive effect in the second period
Our paper aims to explore the effect of industrial robots, a very specific technology, on employment and labour market polarisation in regional European labour markets
Summary
Few topics have historically attracted so much interest from the general public and the research community alike as the impact of technology on work (Mokyr, Vickers & Ziebarth, 2015). Automation is one of the main sources of economic concern for European citizens, with almost three out of four considering that this phenomenon implies net job losses on the Continent (European Commission, 2017). This kind of technological anxiety may have led to an overestimation of the negative effects of automation. The current debates often focus on whether—and to what extent— “this time is different” and whether current technological innovations are more disruptive than those in the past (Autor & Salomons, 2018; Eurofound, 2018; Marengo, 2019; Mokyr, Vickers, & Ziebarth, 2015; Pratt, 2015). We examine region-level variation in the exposure to robotisation, combining information on the deployment of this sort of capital by countries and sectors from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) with regionlevel labour market statistics obtained from different Eurostat datasets
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
