Countries Most Reliant on Industrial Robots Tend to Have Higher Manufacturing Employment Share

The decline in manufacturing employment across advanced economies is often blamed on the increasing use of industrial robots. There have even been proposals to implement a “robot tax” in some countries to counter this effect, such as the United States and Canada. However, countries that are most intensely using industrial robots tend to have a higher share of manufacturing employment, based on 2017 data. A tax on robots would essentially be a tax on manufacturing jobs, hurting the sector the tax is meant to help.