工业机器人使用与新职业就业

Abstract

The widespread application of industrial robots has profoundly reshaped China's employment landscape, driving the creation and development of novel occupations and promoting new occupational employment. Employing data from the Occupational Classification Dictionary of the People's Republic of China, population censuses, and the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), this study adopts a hybrid approach combining natural language processing (NLP) and generative AI to measure the new occupational intensity across different professions and the new occupational index at the city level. Moreover, it examines the impact of industrial robot application on new occupational employment in Chinese cities, exploring the underlying micro-level mechanisms. The empirical results show that industrial robot use can improve the overall level of new occupational employment at the Chinese city level, while also promoting employment in new occupations in the technology industry, lifestyle consumption, and professional services. Mechanism analysis reveals that the promotion effect of industrial robots on urban new occupational employment is mainly achieved through production-side innovation compensation, demand-side income-consumption upgrading, and organization-side task restructuring. In addition, industrial robot use mainly promotes new occupational employment for workers with low education, agricultural hukou, and in cities with a high share of tertiary industry and high industrial diversity. Further research shows that the increase in urban new occupational employment levels promotes the growth of overall urban employment levels and average wage levels, while also enhancing workers' subjective income satisfaction and life satisfaction.