Threats and opportunities in the digital era: Automation spikes and employment dynamics

Giacomo Domini, Marco Grazzi, Daniele Moschella () and Tania Treibich

Research Policy, 2021, vol. 50, issue 7

Abstract: This paper investigates the change in worker flows (i.e. net growth, but also hiring and separation rates) around an investment in automation-intensive goods and, within firms, across occupational categories. Resorting to an integrated dataset encompassing detailed information on firms, their imports, and employer-employee data for French manufacturing employers over the period 2002–2015, we identify ‘automation spikes’ using imports of capital goods embedding automation technologies. Even after controlling for firms’ non-random selection into automation, we find that automation spikes are linked to an increase in firms’ contemporaneous net employment growth rate, jointly explained by a higher hiring rate and a lower separation rate. Furthermore, we find that automation spikes are not associated with significant changes in the composition of the workforce (in terms of 1-digit and 2-digit occupational categories, and routine-intensive vs. non routine-intensive jobs).

Keywords: Automation; Gross worker flows; Skills; Technological change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D25 J23 L25 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (44)

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Working Paper: Threats and opportunities in the digital era: automation spikes and employment dynamics (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:50:y:2021:i:7:s0048733320302122

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2020.104137

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