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Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction

When industrial robots are adopted by firms in a local labor market, some workers are displaced and become unemployed. Other workers that are not directly affected by automation may however fear that these new technologies might replace their working tasks in the future. This fear of a possible futu...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Schwabe, Henrik, Castellacci, Fulvio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7703879/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33253227
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242929
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author Schwabe, Henrik
Castellacci, Fulvio
author_facet Schwabe, Henrik
Castellacci, Fulvio
author_sort Schwabe, Henrik
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description When industrial robots are adopted by firms in a local labor market, some workers are displaced and become unemployed. Other workers that are not directly affected by automation may however fear that these new technologies might replace their working tasks in the future. This fear of a possible future replacement is important because it negatively affects workers’ job satisfaction at present. This paper studies the extent to which automation affects workers’ job satisfaction, and whether this effect differs for high- versus low-skilled workers. The empirical analysis uses microdata for several thousand workers in Norway from the Working Life Barometer survey for the period 2016–2019, combined with information on the introduction of industrial robots in Norway from the International Federation of Robotics. Our identification strategy exploits variation in the pace of introduction of industrial robots in Norwegian regions and industries since 2007 to instrument workers’ fear of replacement. The results indicate that automation in industrial firms in recent years have induced 40% of the workers that are currently in employment to fear that their work might be replaced by a smart machine in the future. Such fear of future replacement does negatively affect workers’ job satisfaction at present. This negative effect is driven by low-skilled workers, which are those carrying out routine-based tasks, and who are therefore more exposed to the risks of automation.
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spelling pubmed-77038792020-12-03 Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction Schwabe, Henrik Castellacci, Fulvio PLoS One Research Article When industrial robots are adopted by firms in a local labor market, some workers are displaced and become unemployed. Other workers that are not directly affected by automation may however fear that these new technologies might replace their working tasks in the future. This fear of a possible future replacement is important because it negatively affects workers’ job satisfaction at present. This paper studies the extent to which automation affects workers’ job satisfaction, and whether this effect differs for high- versus low-skilled workers. The empirical analysis uses microdata for several thousand workers in Norway from the Working Life Barometer survey for the period 2016–2019, combined with information on the introduction of industrial robots in Norway from the International Federation of Robotics. Our identification strategy exploits variation in the pace of introduction of industrial robots in Norwegian regions and industries since 2007 to instrument workers’ fear of replacement. The results indicate that automation in industrial firms in recent years have induced 40% of the workers that are currently in employment to fear that their work might be replaced by a smart machine in the future. Such fear of future replacement does negatively affect workers’ job satisfaction at present. This negative effect is driven by low-skilled workers, which are those carrying out routine-based tasks, and who are therefore more exposed to the risks of automation. Public Library of Science 2020-11-30 /pmc/articles/PMC7703879/ /pubmed/33253227 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242929 Text en © 2020 Schwabe, Castellacci http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Schwabe, Henrik
Castellacci, Fulvio
Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction
title Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction
title_full Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction
title_fullStr Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction
title_full_unstemmed Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction
title_short Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction
title_sort automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7703879/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33253227
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242929
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