‘firms adopting robots … became more profitable and productive’. They also created jobs, increasing employment by 10.9 per cent. Whether the total number of production workers increased tended to depend on how fast the firm’s sales grew. But in most cases, new roles would be created in other parts of the firm – resulting in a gain in employment. The problem was not so much the forward-leaning companies, but the laggards. A 10 per cent increase in robot adoption by a firm was associated with a 2.5 per cent decline in employment at its competitors.38 It was not automation itself driving job
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