A recent report sponsored by the Century Foundation claims that industrial robots have not yet brought the dire nationwide effects that some people have warned about. “How Robots Are Beginning to Affect Workers and Their Wages” shows that the impact of automation varies across groups of workers, regions and industries.
“There have been clear losers with increased automation—namely, younger, less-educated manufacturing workers in the Midwest and younger, minority workers in these industries in particular,” says co-author William Rodgers, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University and chief economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. “These industries not only have the highest number of robots in use, but are also experiencing the fastest growth in robot adoption.