IFR / ZEW study
"Robots create jobs"
The rapid expansion of industrial robots is leading to a positive job balance in companies: In addition to tasks that are now performed by machines, new jobs have been created for employees. This is the conclusion of a ZEW study.
According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the robot density in the German manufacturing industry ranks third in the world with 309 units per 10,000 employees. At the same time, the number of people employed in Germany in 2017 reached its highest level since reunification, with around 44 million people in employment. The IFR therefore comes to a positive job balance in companies, which is also underpinned by the latest survey by the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW).
"The results of the ZEW study for the labor market confirm what we are seeing in the leading industrial nations worldwide in terms of automation with industrial robots," says Junji Tsuda, President of the IFR. "The modernization of production means that dangerous, unhealthy and monotonous work in particular is being taken over by machines. In the vast majority of cases, the new division of labor between man and machine only affects individual activities in a workplace and not the entire range of work performed by an employee." However, if there are job cuts - according to the ZEW, 5% of employees have been replaced within five years - these are offset in the overall balance by new jobs.
In Germany, the increased use of machinery has led to a 1% increase in the total number of jobs. This trend is likely to continue in the future: Based on the information provided by the companies surveyed, the ZEW estimates that further automation and digitalization in companies will trigger processes that will lead to a 1.8% increase in employment by 2021.
According to the IFR, this development is in line with the historical experience gained from the 1990s onwards with the triumph of the computer. Although the mass use of IT in companies has made traditional clerical jobs redundant, according to ZEW calculations, employment rose by just under 0.2% per year between 1995 and 2011.
Computer&AUTOMATION offers the ZEW study for download.
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