机器人、信息通信技术和就业：来自发达和新兴欧盟国家的证据

Robots, ICT and employment:evidence from advanced andemerging EU countries byCostanza Bosone,Leonardo Gambacorta,PaoloGiudici, Enisse Kharroubi and Ulf Lewrick Monetary and Economic Department March 2026 JEL classification: E23, O33, J24 Keywords: ICT capital, employment, labour market,technology adoption, European Union BISWorking Papers are written by members of the Monetary and EconomicDepartment of the Bank for International Settlements, and from time to time by othereconomists, and are published by the Bank. The papers are on subjects of topicalinterest and are technical in character. The views expressed in this publication arethose of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BIS or its membercentral banks. This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org). Robots, ICT and employment:evidence from advanced and emerging EU countries Costanza Bosone, Leonardo Gambacorta, Paolo Giudici, Enisse Kharroubi and Ulf Lewrick* Abstract We study how robot adoption and investment in information and communication technologies(ICT) jointly shape sectoral employment across 20 European Union (EU) countries over theperiod 1995-2020.Using a cross-sectional regression design that interacts changes in robotadoption with ICT investment, we find that increases in robot adoption are associated withhigher employment in sectors that either entered the period without robots or invested little inICT. By contrast, robot adoption is associated with lower employment in sectors that initiallyhad some robots and high ICT investment.These findings highlight the importance of bothinitial conditions and complementary technology investment in shaping labour-market outcomes,suggesting that the employment effects of technology are highly context-dependent. Keywords:robotics, ICT capital, employment, labour market, technology adoption, EuropeanUnionJEL classification:E23, O33, J24 1Introduction Information and communication technologies (ICT) and industrial robotics have seen widespreadadoption across sectors over the last few decades. This raises questions—and sometimes concerns—about their potential effects on firm labour demand and employment.In the short term, or inearly adoption stages, these technologies may complement existing workers, boost productivity,and support job creation—especially in sectors where automation is still limited. ICT can enhancehuman capital by supporting cognitive-intensive tasks and enabling workers to focus on higher-valueactivities, while robotics may increase employment by raising output capacity and creating demandfor complementary roles in supervision, maintenance, and integration.Under these conditions,technology adoption often goes hand in hand with rising labour demand, as firms require newtechnical, analytical, and operational skills to fully leverage digital tools and automation systems(Graetz and Michaels (2018); Ghodsi et al. (2020); Bessen (2020); Gaggl and Wright (2017)). Over time, however, as these technologies mature, they may substitute for labour—especiallyin tasks that can be codified and automated—potentially reducing demand for certain occupationsand skill groups (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2020; de Vries et al., 2020; H´emous and Olsen, 2022).These dynamics are likely to intensify with the spread of generative artificial intelligence (genAI),which can automate not only routine tasks but also parts of non-routine cognitive work (Acemogluet al., 2023; Brynjolfsson et al., 2023; Eloundou et al., 2023). Beyond their aggregate effects, thelabour-market impact of these technologies crucially depends on how firms and sectors adjust theirproduction processes, task allocation, and organisational structures in response to new technologies.Understanding this behavioural and organisational adjustment is essential to explain why similartechnologies can generate sharply different employment outcomes across sectors and countries. However, identifying the precise tipping point at which technology shifts from complementinglabour to replacing it is a complex task. In particular, the timing and mechanics of this transitionremain unclear.We seek to determine the factors that flip the relationship between technologyinvestment and employment from positive (job creation) to negative (job displacement).To doso, we investigate how the proliferation of robotics and ICT investment has affected employmentacross sectors, considering both advanced and emerging countries from the European Union (EU)over the period 1995-2020. In this context, we exploit cross-sectoral variation in initial technologyendowments across country-sector pairs to identify state-dependent effects. Our main empirical results show that the relationship between employment and robot adoptiondepends critically on two factors: the sector’s starting level of robotisation and its ICT investment.To illustrate how these two factors interact, consider a sector that started with no robots in 1995but invested he