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Robots help some companies, even while some workers struggle, study finds
May 22, 2020
An organization that rapidly automates can thrive as its competitors try and catch up. However, overall employment is likely to decrease as robots are introduced. Job losses are likely to be concentrated in the firms that make these changes more slowly.
Overall, adding robots to manufacturing reduces jobs — by more than three per robot, in fact . But a new study co-authored by an MIT professor reveals an important pattern: Firms that move quickly to use robots tend to add workers to their payroll, while industry job losses are more concentrated in firms that make this change more slowly.
The study, by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, examines the introduction of robots to French manufacturing in recent decades, illuminating the business dynamics and labor implications in granular detail.
“When you look at use of robots at the firm level, it is really interesting because there is an additional dimension,” says Acemoglu. “We know firms are adopting robots in order to reduce their costs, so it is quite plausible that firms adopting robots early are going to expand at the expense of their competitors whose costs are not going down. And that’s exactly what we find.”
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