Research On The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence Applications On Manufacturing Labor Employment

Artificial intelligence technology is considered to be the general technology of the next generation of industrial revolution.It will completely change the mode of economic production,and thus have a dramatic impact on economic growth and labor employment.In recent years,the research on artificial intelligence is gradually rising in academic circles,but most of them are limited to literature review.There are few empirical data from developing countries,and the relevant research on its impact mechanism and the impact on different employment structures has not been covered.The data we use are mainly derived from the panel data of 28 manufacturing subsectors in China and IFR database from 2003 to 2018.We studied the impact of the application of artificial intelligence in China’s manufacturing industry on labor employment.We estimated the results of the basic model,and used the one-period lagging industrial robot application scale and the robot data of related industries in the United States as instrumental variables to solve the endogenous problem.Furthermore,we used the ratio of labor to investment in fixed assets as a measure of substitution effect and unit labor output as a measure of productivity effect to test the related influence mechanism.And we drew the conclusions as follows:Firstly,the application of A.I.in manufacturing industry of China will have a negative impact on the overall employment scale and change the structure of labor market.Specifically,the operation stock of industrial robots increased by 1%,the overall employment opportunities of workers decreased by 0.0468%,the employment opportunities of high skilled workers\ low skilled workers\ male workers \ female workers decreased by 0.0182%,0.0471%,0.0461%,0.0471%,respectively.Secondly,the impact of A.I.application on employment in China’s manufacturing industry has two mechanisms: substitution effect and productivity effect.However,the employment destruction of substitution effect is greater than the employment creation of productivity effect.Thirdly,the application of artificial intelligence in China’s manufacturing industry has a heterogeneous effect on industries with different factor intensity.In the technology intensive industry,it mainly presents the positive impact of productivity effect for high skilled labor force.Finally,we also introduce the interaction term of time dummy variable and explanatory variable in benchmark regression.And the results show that,different from conventional cognition,the concept of "industry 4.0" proposed in Germany in 2011 will significantly increase the application scale of industrial robots,but its negative impact on the labor market is weaker than that before 2011.Above all,the government should take measures to prevent the negative impact of application of A.I.on the labor market.For example,establish the training system of high-skilled workers;improve the matching of workers’ skills with job requirements.What’s more,the government should pay more attention to the reemployment of the jobless,so as to prevent the new social inequality and contradiction as the A.I.technology develops.