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Research papers on Automation and the labor market

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  1. Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets

    Daron Acemoğlu, Pascual Restrepo · 2017 · National Bureau of Economic Research · 909 citations

    As robots and other computer-assisted technologies take over tasks previously performed by labor, there is increasing concern about the future of jobs and wages.We analyze the effect of the increase in industrial robot usage between 1990 and 2007 on US local labor markets.Using a model in which robots compete against human labor in the production of different tasks, we show that robots may reduce employment and wages, and that the local labor market effects of robots can be estimated by regressing the change in employment and wages on the exposure to robots in each local labor market-defined from the national penetration of robots into each industry and the local distribution of employment a

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  2. The Adjustment of Labor Markets to Robots

    Wolfgang Dauth, Sebastian Findeisen, Jens Suedekum, et al. · 2021 · Journal of the European Economic Association · 571 citations

    Abstract We use detailed administrative data to study the adjustment of local labor markets to industrial robots in Germany. Robot exposure, as predicted by a shift-share variable, is associated with displacement effects in manufacturing, but those are fully offset by new jobs in services. The incidence mostly falls on young workers just entering the labor force. Automation is related to more stable employment within firms for incumbents, and this is driven by workers taking over new tasks in their original plants. Several measures indicate that those new jobs are of higher quality than the previous ones. Young workers also adapt their educational choices, and substitute away from vocational

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  3. The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Labor Market

    Michael Webb · 2019 · Economics of Innovation eJournal · 508 citations

    I develop a new method to predict the impacts of a technology on occupations. I use the overlap between the text of job task descriptions and the text of patents to construct a measure of the exposure of tasks to automation. I first apply the method to historical cases such as software and industrial robots. I establish that occupations I measure as highly exposed to previous automation technologies saw declines in employment and wages over the relevant periods. I use the fitted parameters from the case studies to predict the impacts of artificial intelligence. I find that, in contrast to software and robots, AI is directed at high-skilled tasks. Under the assumption that the historical patt

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  4. Is Automation Labor-Displacing? Productivity Growth, Employment, and the Labor Share

    David Autor, Anna Salomons · 2018 · National Bureau of Economic Research · 418 citations

    Many technological innovations replace workers with machines, but this capital-labor substitution need not reduce aggregate labor demand because it simultaneously induces four countervailing responses: own-industry output effects; cross-industry input-output effects; between-industry shifts; and final demand effects.We quantify these channels using four decades of harmonized cross-country and industry data, where we measure automation as industry-level movements in total factor productivity (TFP) that are common across countries.We find that automation displaces employment and reduces labor's share of value-added in the industries in which it originates (a direct effect).In the case of emplo

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  5. Is Automation Labor Share-Displacing? Productivity Growth, Employment, and the Labor Share

    David Autor, David Autor, Anna Salomons, et al. · 2018 · Brookings Papers on Economic Activity · 381 citations

    Many technological innovations replace workers with machines, but this capital-labor substitution need not reduce aggregate labor demand because it simultaneously induces four countervailing responses: own-industry output effects; cross-industry input-output effects; between-industry shifts; and final demand effects.We quantify these channels using four decades of harmonized cross-country and industry data, where we measure automation as industry-level movements in total factor productivity (TFP) that are common across countries.We find that automation displaces employment and reduces labor's share of value-added in the industries in which it originates (a direct effect).In the case of emplo

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  6. Adjusting to Robots: Worker-Level Evidence

    W. Dauth, S. Findeisen, Jens Suedekum, et al. · 2018 · 110 citations

    We estimate the effect of industrial robots on employment, wages, and the composition of jobs in German labor markets between 1994 and 2014. We find that the adoption of industrial robots had no effect on total employment in local labor markets specializing in industries with high robot usage. Robot adoption led to job losses in manufacturing that were offset by gains in the business service sector. We analyze the impact on individual workers and find that robot adoption has not increased the risk of displacement for incumbent manufacturing workers. They stay with their original employer, and many workers adjust by switching occupations at their original workplace. The loss of manufacturing

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  7. Death by Robots? Automation and Working-Age Mortality in the United States.

    R. O'Brien, Elizabeth F. Bair, A. Venkataramani · 2021 · Demography · 63 citations

    The decline of manufacturing employment is frequently invoked as a key cause of worsening U.S. population health trends, including rising mortality due to "deaths of despair." Increasing automation-the use of industrial robots to perform tasks previously done by human workers-is one structural force driving the decline of manufacturing jobs and wages. In this study, we examine the impact of automation on age- and sex-specific mortality. Using exogenous variation in automation to support causal inference, we find that increases in automation over the period 1993-2007 led to substantive increases in all-cause mortality for both men and women aged 45-54. Disaggregating by cause, we find evidenc

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  8. Automation, unemployment, and the role of labor market training

    B. Schmidpeter, R. Winter-Ebmer · 2021 · European Economic Review · 63 citations

    Abstract We provide comprehensive evidence on the consequences of automation risk on the career of unemployed workers and the mitigating role of labor market training. Using almost two decades of administrative data for Austria, we find that a higher risk of automation reduces the job finding probability; a problem which has increased over the past years. This development is associated with increasing re-employment wages and job stability. We also present new aspects of public training in times of technological progress. Provided training counteracts the negative impact of automation on the job finding probability. Its efficiency has declined over the past years, however.

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  9. Explaining the Labor Share: Automation Vs Labor Market Institutions

    Luís Guimarães, Pedro Mazeda Gil · 2022 · Labour Economics · 46 citations

    We propose a simple model to assess the evolution of the US labor share and how automation affects employment. In our model, heterogeneous firms may choose a manual technology and hire a worker subject to matching frictions. Alternatively, they may choose an automated technology and produce using only machines (robots). Our model suggests that automation reduces the labor share but increases employment and wages. Furthermore, our model suggests that labor market institutions are unlikely to have played a major role in the fall of the US labor share after 1987. Instead, technological factors are a more promising candidate.

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  10. Is an Army of Robots Marching on Chinese Jobs?

    Osea Giuntella, Tianyi Wang · 2019 · SSRN Electronic Journal · 45 citations

    A handful of studies have investigated the effects of robots on workers in advanced economies. According to a recent report from the World Bank (2016), 1.8 billion jobs in developing countries are susceptible to automation. Given the inability of labor markets to adjust to rapid changes, there is a growing concern that the effect of automation and robotization in emerging economies may increase inequality and social unrest. Yet, we still know very little about the impact of robots in developing countries. In this paper we analyze the effects of exposure to industrial robots in the Chinese labor market. Using aggregate data from Chinese prefectural cities (2000-2016) and individual longitudin

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  11. Testing the Employment Impact of Automation, Robots and AI: A Survey and Some Methodological Issues

    Laura Barbieri, Chiara Mussida, M. Piva, et al. · 2019 · SSRN Electronic Journal · 38 citations

    The present technological revolution, characterized by the pervasive and growing presence of robots, automation, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, is going to transform societies and economic systems. However, this is not the first technological revolution humankind has been facing, but it is probably the very first one with such an accelerated diffusion pace involving all the industrial sectors. Studying its mechanisms and consequences (will the world turn into a jobless society or not?), mainly considering the labor market dynamics, is a crucial matter. This paper aims at providing an updated picture of main empirical evidence on the relationship between new technologies and em

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  12. Offshoring, Automation, Low-Skilled Immigration, and Labor Market Polarization

    Federico S. Mandelman, A. Zlate · 2022 · American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics · 35 citations

    We show that the observed polarization of employment toward the high- and low-skill occupations disappears when only native workers are considered. Instead, low-skilled immigration explains employment growth at the low tail of the skill distribution. Moreover, while employment rose, wages remained subdued in low-skill occupations. A data-disciplined structural model accounts for this evidence: Offshoring and automation negatively affect middle-skill occupations but enhance employment and wages for the high-skilled. Low-skill employment is sheltered from offshoring and automation, as it consists of manual, non-tradable services. However, low-skilled immigration depresses low-skill wages and e

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  14. Automation, Bargaining Power, and Labor Market Fluctuations

    S. Leduc, Zheng Liu · 2024 · American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics · 31 citations

    We argue that the threat of automation weakens workers’ bargaining power in wage negotiations, dampening wage adjustments and amplifying unemployment fluctuations. We make this argument based on a business cycle model with labor market search frictions, generalized to incorporate automation decisions. In the model, procyclical automation threats create endogenous real wage rigidity that amplifies labor market fluctuations. The automation mechanism is consistent with empirical evidence. It is also quantitatively important for explaining the large volatilities of unemployment and vacancies relative to that of real wages, a puzzling observation through the lens of standard business cycle models

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  15. Augmenting or Automating Labor? The Effect of AI Development on New Work, Employment, and Wages

    David Marguerit · 2025 · SSRN Electronic Journal · 16 citations

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the labor market by changing the task content of occupations. This study investigates the impact of AI development on the emergence of new work, employment, and wages in the United States from 2015 to 2022. I develop innovative methods to measure occupational and industry exposure to AI technologies that substitute labor (automation AI ) or enhance workers' output (augmentation AI), and to identify new work (i.e., new job titles). To address endogeneity, I use instrumental variable estimators, leveraging AI development in countries with limited economic ties to the United States. The findings indicate that automation AI negatively impacts new work, e

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  17. The cause and consequence of robot adoption in China: Minimum wages and firms’ responses

    Richard B. Freeman, Xueyue Liu, Zhikuo Liu, et al. · 2024 · Fundamental Research · 8 citations

    We study the cause and consequence of firms’ robot adoption in China using novel panel data related to robots imported by firms in China from 2001 to 2012, when more than 80% of China’s robots were imported. We find that the rising minimum wages affect firms’ robot adoption and the effect is more significant for routine-intensive, labor-intensive and large firms. Moreover, employing robots significantly increases firms’ productivity, labor employment, average wages, and market share. These findings suggest that productivity gains from automation are partially passed on to workers in the form of more employment and higher labor income.

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  18. The Future of Work in Latin America and the Caribbean: What is the Impact of Automation on Employment and Wages?

    Laura Ripani, Nicolás Soler, Adriana Debora Kugler, et al. · 2020 · 7 citations

    Until recently, Latin America and the Caribbean had been left out of the debate about the profound changes that the global labor market is experiencing due to the incorporation of robotics and artificial intelligence. One of the main reasons is that, at least until before the COVID-19 pandemic, technology adoption in our countries had been relatively slow. However, the new technologies adopted in developed countries are having an impact on the labor markets of our region. The international transactions of goods and services that characterize globalized economies make it necessary to take into account not only automation in a given country, but also in a global framework. This sixth issue of

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  20. Artificial intelligence, automation and employment dynamics: empirical evidence from G7 economies

    F. Okur, Enes Özdemir · 2025 · Journal of Economic Studies · 4 citations

    This study examines how the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation affects employment dynamics across G7 economies. While previous research has often focused on either AI or robotics in isolation, their combined and long-term effects on employment remain poorly understood. Addressing this gap is crucial for policymakers seeking to balance technological progress with labor market stability. Using a balanced panel dataset covering 2010–2024 for the G7 countries, the study investigates the relationships between AI investment (proxied by information and communication technology (ICT) investment), robot density (ROBOT), wages, productivity (PRD) and education spe

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  21. The labor market in Turkey, 2000-2024

    Hasan Tekguc · 2025 · IZA World of Labor · 4 citations

    In the first two decades of the 2000s, Turkey has relied on structural change from traditional to modern sectors on the one hand and educational compositional change on the other hand to create formal employment in the modern sector. In 2000 the share of formally employed salaried employees in total employment was less than 40% for men and 30% for women. By 2021, this ration converged to 60% for men and women. Formal employment has increased for both men and women and the gender gap in formal employment declined substantially until 2020. However, relying on structural change and education to improve job quality has likely run its course. Since Covid-19, time-related underemployment has incre

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  22. Monopsony and Automation

    José Azar, Marina Chugunova, Klaus Keller, et al. · 2023 · SSRN Electronic Journal · 3 citations

    We examine the impact of labor market power on firms’ adoption of automation technologies. We develop a model that incorporates labor market power into the task-based theory of automation. We show that, due to higher marginal cost of labor, monopsonistic firms have stronger incentives to automate than wage-taking firms, which could amplify or mitigate the negative employment effects of automation. Using data from US commuting zones, our results show that commuting zones that are more exposed to industrial robots exhibit considerably larger reductions in both employment and wages when their labor markets demonstrate higher levels of concentration.

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  23. Robots, Employment and Wages: Evidence from Turkish Labor Markets

    Uğur Aytun, Yılmaz Kılıçaslan, Oytun Meçi̇k, et al. · 2026 · World Journal of Applied Economics · 2 citations

    This paper investigates how robotization affects local- and worker-level labor market outcomes in Turkey for 2014-2021. We estimate shift-share specifications, instrumenting Turkish industry-level robot adoption with the same indicator in eight leading European countries, utilising a combined dataset of administrative employer-employee data and industry-level robot stocks. Contrary to evidence from advanced economies, we find positive effects of robot exposure on district-level employment growth, concentrated in manufacturing and driven by the automotive industry. This pattern is consistent with the theoretical insight that the labor market effects of automation depend on an economy's positi

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  24. Efectos de la automatización en el empleo en Chile

    Tiare Rivera Taiba · 2019 · Revista de análisis económico · 2 citations

    This paper analyzes the effects of new technologies oriented to automation in the Chilean labor market. A general equilibrium model is used, in which the investment in robotic capital and the investment in traditional capital are considered separately, allowing the study of the effects of complementarity and substitution that are verified in relation to the labor factor. In particular, the model treats robotic capital as a direct substitute for labor, while incorporating traditional capital as complementary to it. By subjecting the economy to shocks in robotic capital prices, the effects on consumption, employment, wages and GDP can be studied. The results indicate that a fall in the interna

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