Effect of automation on individual workers
Bessen and al. used data provided by Statistics Netherlands and cover years 2000-2016: in particular they observed 36,490 firms with at least three years of automation cost data, employing around 5 million workers per year on average. By leveraging a novel differences-in-differences design exploiting automation event timing they show that:
- Automation at the firm significantly increases incumbent workers’ hazard of separating from their employers;
- This firm separation is followed by a decrease in days worked, leading to a five-year cumulative wage income loss of some 11 percent of one year’s earnings;
- Wage income losses are only partially offset by various benefits systems, and older workers are more likely to enter early retirement;
- In contrast to displacement from mass lay-offs, however, workers do not experience daily wage decreases as a result of automation events, and there is no evidence that automation displaces the firm’s more recent hires;
- Finally, automation events affect relatively few workers and these effects occur more gradually: two percent of incumbent workers separate from their employers in the first year, followed by a trickle of ongoing separations.
Automatic Reaction – What Happens to Workers at Firms that Automate?
Authors: James Bessen, Maarten Goos, Anna Salomons, Wiljan van den Berge
From: Boston University, Utrecht University, Utrecht University, CPB
Automation at the firm level
Domini and al. use a dataset encompassing detailed information on firms, their imports, and employer-employee data for French manufacturing employers over 2002-2015. They find that:
- Firms investing in goods which are intensive in automation technologies do not display a negative effect on employment;
- If anything, automation spikes are positively correlated with preceding and contemporaneous growth in employment, which is mainly due to lower separation rates of investing firms;
- In addition, the relationship between automation spikes and worker flows doesn’t seem to change across different types of workers (occupational categories, ‘techies’, routine-intensive vs. non routine-intensive).
Threats and opportunities in the digital era: automation spikes and employment dynamics
Authors: Giacomo Domini, Marco Grazzi, Daniele Moschella, Tania Treibich
From: Erasmus University, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna-Pisa, University of Maastricht
Public opinion on the effects of automation
Mulas-Granados and al. looked at how 11,000 workers across 11 advanced and emerging market economies perceive the main forces shaping the future of work.
Public Opinion on Automation
Authors: Carlos Mulas-Granados, Richard Varghese, Vizhdan Boranova
From: IMF
