Several empirical studies have sought to determine whether recent technological advances have reduced the aggregate demand for work or hindered wage growth. For example, Terry Gregory, Anna Salomons and Ulrich Zierahn (2016) felt that the negative effects of automating routine tasks on the medium-skilled jobs in Europe were offset by job creation through increased demand. By observing 17 European countries, Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels (2015) believe that the diffusion of industrial robots has stimulated labour productivity, added value, wages and overall factor productivity; It did not significantly affect the duration of the work, except perhaps for low-or medium-skilled workers. More pessimistic, Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo (2017) conclude on their side that robots can reduce employment and wages: in the United States, the addition of an industrial robot for a thousand workers reduced the employment-to-population ratio from 0.18 to 0.34 percentage points and salaries from 0.25 to 0.5%. Consider that the findings to which these studies are successful are, however, very difficult to generalise. Indeed, robots operate only in a limited set of industrial applications, mainly in heavy industry, or as the use of robots extends outside the industry, the impact that automation has on employment will be likely to change.

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