Robots and Unions: The Moderating Effect of Organised Labour on Technological Unemployment

Henri Haapanala, Ive Marx () and Zachary Parolin ()
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Henri Haapanala: University of Antwerp
Ive Marx: University of Antwerp
Zachary Parolin: Bocconi University

No 15080, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We analyse the moderating effect of trade unions on industrial employment and unemployment in countries facing exposure to industrial robots. Applying random effects within-between regression to a pseudo-panel of observations from 28 advanced democracies over 1998-2019, we find that stronger trade unions in a country are associated with a greater decline in the industry sector employment of young and low-educated workers. We also show that the unemployment rates for low-educated workers remain constant in strongly unionised countries with increasing exposure to robots, whereas in weakly unionised countries, low-educated unemployment declines with robot exposure but from a higher starting point. Our results point to unions exacerbating the insider-outsider effects of technological change within the industrial sector, which however is not fully passed on to unemployment.

Keywords: unemployment; dual labour market; outsiders/insiders; technological change; trade unions; labour economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 81 pages
Date: 2022-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published in: Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2023, 44 (3), 827-852

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