Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment (Sep 2024)
Technological anxiety: Analysis of the impact of industrial intelligence on employment in China
Abstract
Employment is the greatest livelihood. Whether the impact of industrial robotics technology materialized in machines on employment in the digital age is an “icing on the cake” or “adding fuel to the fire” needs further study. This study aims to analyze the impact of the installation and application of industrial robots on labor demand in the context of the Chinese economy. First, from the theoretical logic and the economic development law, this study gives the prior judgment and research hypothesis that industrial intelligence will increase jobs. Then, based on the panel data of 269 cities in China from 2006 to 2021, we use the two-way fixed effect model, dynamic threshold model, and two-stage intermediary effect model. The objective is to investigate the impact of industrial intelligence on enterprise labor demand and its path mechanism. Results show that the overall effect of industrial intelligence on the labor force with the installation density index of industrial robots as the proxy variable is the “creation effect”. In other words, advanced digital technology has created additional jobs, and the overall supply of employment in the labor market has increased. The conclusion is still valid after the endogeneity identification and robustness test. In addition, the positive effect has a nonlinear effect on the network scale. When the installation density of industrial robots exceeds a particular threshold value, the division of labor continues to deepen under the combined action of the production efficiency and compensation effects, which will cause enterprises to increase labor demand further. Further research showed that industrial intelligence can increase employment by promoting synergistic agglomeration and improving labor price distortions. This study concludes that in the digital China era, the introduction and installation of industrial robots by enterprises can affect the optimal allocation of the labor market. This phenomenon has essential experience and reference significance for guiding industrial digitalization and intelligent transformation and promoting the high-quality development of people’s livelihood.
