Plastics Today:
Productivity numbers send mixed - maybe wrong - signals
7 November 2016
Given the increased usage of robotics and other automation, how will that impact the productivity numbers? In July of 2015, Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels published a paper, “Estimating the Impact of Robots on Productivity and Employment,” in Robohub. The pair set out to discover the impact of robots on the average manufacturing worker by analyzing their effect in 14 industries across 17 developed countries from 1993 to 2007. “We found that industrial robots increase labor productivity, total factor productivity and wages,” said Graetz and Michaels in their study. “While they don’t significantly change total hours worked, they may be a threat to low- and middle-skilled workers.”