In recent years, much effort has been devoted to estimating the impact of automation on employment. Since scholars disagree so fundamentally about the consequences for employment, it might be useful to reverse the question and ask whether and how technological change might have a positive impact on employment. In fact, technological change can generate mechanisms that are able to more than compensate for job losses in the longer term. Topics in this section deal with the impact of new technologies, big data, artificial intelligence and robotics on jobs and productivity.

There are rising concerns about a possible negative impact of robots on employment. In this paper, we explore the sectoral and regional interdependencies of the impact of robot installations on the employment rate. By combining IFR data on robot installations with employment statistics by the Italian national statistical office, we analyze the dependency structure of various time series of robots and employment in manufacturing industries and Italian regions.