firm-level

This paper estimates the impact of firm-level investments in automation technologies on worker-level outcomes. It finds that automation increases the probability of incumbent workers separating from their employers, in line with recent task-based models of automation. It shows that incumbent workers experience a 5-year cumulative wage income loss of 9 percent of one year’s earnings on average, driven by decreases in days worked. These adverse impacts of automation are larger in smaller firms, and for older and less-educated workers. By contrast, no such losses are found for firms’ investments in computers.

This paper uses a Dutch firm-level survey on automation expenditures linked to administrative records covering the universe of firms in the Netherlands to consider firm-level automation over 2000–2016. It shows that net employment at firms falls after investments in automation technology. Importantly, this effect arises among both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing firms, indicating that this is not specific to technologies like robotics.