IMPATTI DELL’AUTOMAZIONE SUL MERCATO DEL LAVORO. NUOVE STIME PER IL CASO ITALIANO

The impact of automation on the labor market is one of the most debated issues in recent years, partly because of the remarkable achievements in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. It is quite clear that a scientifically grounded discussion on these issues − above all in terms of lost jobs and the related impacts on welfare - cannot be separated from the theoretical context and the analysis of concrete situations. Last year already, during the Wharton Global Forum 2017 held in Hong Kong, a suspicion arose among a panel of experts that the «stunning» developments in the domain of artificial intelligence were mostly a media creation and that this hype entailed a full misrepresentation of reality. On the other hand, at a global level, some surveys show that the diffusion of artificial intelligence is rather weak and confined to a narrow range of products and production processes (BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP 2017), while at national level the results are quite contradictory: our country ranks at the top for use of Internet of Things (OECD 2017), in the face of a large majority of micro-enterprises relatively closed to any form of innovation (POLITECNICO DI MILANO 2017). Therefore, this paper aims to achieve new estimates of the impact of automation on the Italian labor market, differentiated by sector and macro-geographical areas, taking into account the size of enterprises that affects the propensity in implementing the new technologies, as confirmed by many studies.