Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/252204 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 15080
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We analyse the moderating effect of trade unions on industrial employment and unemployment in countries facing exposure to industrial robots. Applying random effects within-between regression to a pseudo-panel of observations from 28 advanced democracies over 1998-2019, we find that stronger trade unions in a country are associated with a greater decline in the industry sector employment of young and low-educated workers. We also show that the unemployment rates for low-educated workers remain constant in strongly unionised countries with increasing exposure to robots, whereas in weakly unionised countries, low-educated unemployment declines with robot exposure but from a higher starting point. Our results point to unions exacerbating the insider-outsider effects of technological change within the industrial sector, which however is not fully passed on to unemployment.
Subjects: 
trade unions
technological change
outsiders/insiders
dual labour market
unemployment
labour economics
JEL: 
J5
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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