Claire Lelarge participated in the Journées de l’Économie (Jéco) on November 18, 2020. The theme of this conference was “What impact do robots have on employment?”
In 2019, around 2.7 million industrial robots were in use worldwide, twice as many as in 2013. While many observers fear a replacement of workers by machines that could generate an outburst in unemployment, others see considerable productivity gains enabling the creation of new jobs. This technological revolution raises many questions: do the available studies confirm these fears? Which jobs are most at risk? How should employees be supported? Is taxing robots a good idea to preserve jobs? These are just some of the issues that researchers and experts in the field will attempt to decipher at this conference.