Logistics Under Automation and Digitalisation: How Technology Displaces Human Work

Valeria Cirillo, Francesco Sabato Massimo (), Matteo Rinaldini and Jacopo Staccioli
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Francesco Sabato Massimo: UNIBO - Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna = University of Bologna

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Abstract: Logistics operations, central to global capitalism, are transforming due to automation and digital technologies like Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs), especially in warehouses. Despite technological advances, the sector relies on a low-skilled workforce often facing precarious conditions, including low wages, unsafe environments, and migrant worker exploitation. AGVs have not replaced human labour, as management values human flexibility over full automation to meet market demands, limiting AGV-driven job replacement. Rather, automation displaces labour, leading to work reorganisation. AGVs significantly reshape tasks, professional roles, and organisational boundaries. Their impact varies across companies, with technologically autonomous firms like Amazon experiencing deeper labour reorganisation and intensified value extraction. Automation's integration depends on corporate governance and market roles, creating uneven effects on workers.

Keywords: Task reconfiguration; Division of labour; Corporate strategies; Logistics; Automated guided vehicles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-07-15
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Published in Technology and Work in Services. Vulnerable Workers under Automation and Digitalisation, Springer Nature Switzerland, pp.35-64, 2025, 978-3-031-88148-0. ⟨10.1007/978-3-031-88149-7_2⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05447597

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-88149-7_2

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