German robots - the impact of industrial robots on workers

Wolfgang Dauth, Sebastian Findeisen, Jens Südekum and Nicole Wößner
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jens Suedekum

No 201730, IAB-Discussion Paper from Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]

Abstract: "We study the impact of rising robot exposure on the careers of individual manufacturing workers, and the equilibrium impact across industries and local labor markets in Germany. We find no evidence that robots cause total job losses, but they do affect the composition of aggregate employment. Every robot destroys two manufacturing jobs. This accounts for almost 23 percent of the overall decline of manufacturing employment in Germany over the period 1994 - 2014, roughly 275,000 jobs. But this loss was fully offset by additional jobs in the service sector. Moreover, robots have not raised the displacement risk for incumbent manufacturing workers. Quite in contrast, more robot exposed workers are even more likely to remain employed in their original workplace, though not necessarily performing the same tasks, and the aggregate manufacturing decline is solely driven by fewer new jobs for young labor market entrants. This enhanced job stability for insiders comes at the cost of lower wages. The negative impact of robots on individual earnings arises mainly for medium-skilled workers in machine-operating occupations, while high-skilled managers gain. In the aggregate, robots raise labor productivity but not wages. Thereby they contribute to the decline of the labor income share." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Keywords: Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Auswirkungen; Automatisierung; Berufsverlauf; Beschäftigungseffekte; Beschäftigungsentwicklung; Dienstleistungsbereich; Einkommenseffekte; Fertigungsberufe; Handhabungstechnik; abhängig Beschäftigte; Industrieroboter; Integrierte Erwerbsbiografien; Lohnquote; Personaleinstellung; Produktivitätseffekte; regionaler Arbeitsmarkt; Roboter; verarbeitendes Gewerbe; Arbeitsplatzabbau; 1994-2014 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 J24 O33 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lma and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (195)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201730

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