Robots are taking manufacturing jobs but making firms more productive

Robots are replacing human manufacturing workers in France, and making companies more productive in the process.

Daron Acemoglu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues analysed more than 55,000 French manufacturing firms, noting which ones bought robots between 2010 and 2015 and what impacts the purchases had.

“There is obviously increasing concern about what automation means for productivity, for jobs, for inequality,” says Acemoglu.

The team found that a 20 per cent increase in robot use across the manufacturing industry was associated with a 3.2 per cent industry-wide…