The Impact of Robots on Labour Market Transitions in Europe

We study the effects of robot exposure on worker flows in 16 European countries. Overall, we find small negative effects on job separations and small positive effects on job findings. Labour costs are shown to be a major driver of cross-country differences: in countries with lower labour costs, robot exposure had more positive effects on hirings and more negative effects on separations. These effects were particularly pronounced for workers in occupations intensive in routine manual or routine cognitive tasks, but were insignificant in occupations intensive in non-routine cognitive tasks. For young and old workers in countries with lower labour costs, robot exposure had a beneficial effect on transitions. Our results imply that robot adoption increased employment and reduced unemployment in most European countries, mainly through lower job separation rates.