IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/biswps/1334.html

Robots, ICT and employment: evidence from advanced and emerging EU countries

Author

Listed:
  • Costanza Bosone
  • Leonardo Gambacorta
  • Paolo Giudici
  • Enisse Kharroubi
  • Ulf Lewrick

Abstract

We study how robot adoption and investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) jointly shape sectoral employment across 20 European Union (EU) countries over the period 1995-2020. Using a cross-sectional regression design that interacts changes in robot adoption with ICT investment, we find that increases in robot adoption are associated with higher employment in sectors that either entered the period without robots or invested little in ICT. By contrast, robot adoption is associated with lower employment in sectors that initially had some robots and high ICT investment. These findings highlight the importance of both initial conditions and complementary technology investment in shaping labour-market outcomes, suggesting that the employment effects of technology are highly context-dependent.

Suggested Citation

  • Costanza Bosone & Leonardo Gambacorta & Paolo Giudici & Enisse Kharroubi & Ulf Lewrick, 2026. "Robots, ICT and employment: evidence from advanced and emerging EU countries," BIS Working Papers 1334, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1334
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1334.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1334.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2019. "Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 3-30, Spring.
    2. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1279-1333.
    3. Paul Gaggl & Greg C. Wright, 2017. "A Short-Run View of What Computers Do: Evidence from a UK Tax Incentive," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 262-294, July.
    4. Gregory, Terry & Salomons, Anna & Zierahn, Ulrich, 2016. "Racing With or Against the Machine? Evidence from Europe," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145843, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Mahdi Ghodsi & Oliver Reiter & Robert Stehrer & Roman Stöllinger, 2020. "Robotisation, Employment and Industrial Growth Intertwined Across Global Value Chains," wiiw Working Papers 177, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    6. Tyna Eloundou & Sam Manning & Pamela Mishkin & Daniel Rock, 2023. "GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models," Papers 2303.10130, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2020. "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2188-2244.
    8. de Vries, Gaaitzen J. & Gentile, Elisabetta & Miroudot, Sébastien & Wacker, Konstantin M., 2020. "The rise of robots and the fall of routine jobs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    9. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue nov.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stefan Jestl, 2022. "Industrial Robots, and Information and Communication Technology: The Employment Effects in EU Labour Markets," wiiw Working Papers 215, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    2. Jasmine Mondolo, 2022. "The composite link between technological change and employment: A survey of the literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1027-1068, September.
    3. Fernández-Macías, Enrique & Klenert, David & Antón, José-Ignacio, 2021. "Not so disruptive yet? Characteristics, distribution and determinants of robots in Europe," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 76-89.
    4. Sergio De Nardis & Francesca Parente, 2022. "Technology and task changes in the major EU countries," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(2), pages 391-413, April.
    5. Hang, Leiming & Lu, Wei & Ge, Xiaowei & Ye, Bin & Zhao, Zhiqi & Cheng, Fangfang, 2024. "R&D innovation, industrial evolution and the labor skill structure in China manufacturing," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    6. Jaime Arellano-Bover & Carolina Bussotti & Matteo Paradisi & Liangjie Wu, 2026. "The Labor Demand Implications of Brand Capital: Evidence from Trademark Transactions," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 26079, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    7. Kudoh, Noritaka & Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2025. "Robots, AI, and unemployment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    8. Caselli, Mauro & Fracasso, Andrea & Scicchitano, Sergio & Traverso, Silvio & Tundis, Enrico, 2025. "What workers and robots do: An activity-based analysis of the impact of robotization on changes in local employment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(1).
    9. Gries, Thomas & Naudé, Wim, 2020. "Artificial Intelligence, Income Distribution and Economic Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 13606, IZA Network @ LISER.
    10. Antonio Francesco Gravina & Neil Foster-McGregor, 2024. "Unraveling wage inequality: tangible and intangible assets, globalization and labor market regulations," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 1375-1420, October.
    11. Kostøl, Fredrik B. & Svarstad, Elin, 2023. "Trade Unions and the Process of Technological Change," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Ebeke, Christian H. & Eklou, Kodjovi M., 2023. "Automation and the employment elasticity of fiscal policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    13. Fierro, Luca Eduardo & Caiani, Alessandro & Russo, Alberto, 2022. "Automation, Job Polarisation, and Structural Change," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 499-535.
    14. Zhang, Xinchun & Sun, Murong & Liu, Jianxu & Xu, Aijia, 2024. "The nexus between industrial robot and employment in China: The effects of technology substitution and technology creation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    15. Du, Longzheng & Lin, Weifen, 2022. "Does the application of industrial robots overcome the Solow paradox? Evidence from China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. Camilla Lenzi & Elisa Panzera, 2025. "Income and wage inequalities from automation. A European perspective," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 45(3), pages 395-420, September.
    17. Hui Liang & Jingbo Fan & Yunhan Wang, 2025. "Artificial Intelligence, Technological Innovation, and Employment Transformation for Sustainable Development: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-28, April.
    18. Niu, Meng & Wang, Zhenguo & Zhang, Yabin, 2022. "How information and communication technology drives (routine and non-routine) jobs: Structural path and decomposition analysis for China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1).
    19. Genz, Sabrina & Schnabel, Claus, 2021. "Digging into the digital divide: Workers' exposure to digitalization and its consequences for individual employment," Discussion Papers 118, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    20. Ravish Gupta & Saket Kumar, 2026. "Agentic AI and Occupational Displacement: A Multi-Regional Task Exposure Analysis of Emerging Labor Market Disruption," Papers 2604.00186, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1334. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Martin Fessler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.