Robots and immigration

Abstract

Changes in local labor supply may affect robot adoption by firms. We test this hypothesis by exploiting an increase in the number of workers and a change in the local workforce composition induced by exogenous immigration into Danish municipalities. Using the Danish employer-employee matched dataset over the period 1995-2019, we show in a shift-share regression that a larger share of non-Western immigrants in a municipality leads to fewer robot adoptions at the firm-level. Several demographic characteristics, including prime age and low skill level, make immigrant workers particularly substitutable for robots. As many advanced economies are facing labor shortages, this paper sheds light on the future of robotization.