This paper provides evidence on the relation between investment in digital and automation tech- nologies and employment in different manufacturing industries in Europe and the extent to which this rela- tion varies over time across technologies, industries, and regions. We find that in the short run the techno- logical penetration of robots is associated with higher employment in low-tech regions, while service-inten- sive regions and cities experience decreased employ- ment. Our heterogenous results suggest the need for different but coordinated policies at the European, national, and sub-national levels.

This paperΩ performs a systematic review of the literature from engineering and technology that broadly addresses the following research questions. a) Are digital automation technologies designed to substitute, complement, and/or reconfigure specific tasks executed by humans within sectors? b) What are these specific tasks across sectors? Are they specific to some sectors? To what extent can they be routinized? We offer a (re)designed classification of digital automation technology families. We then systematically review the technical literature focusing on Robotization, Artificial Intelligence, Data Acquisition, and Data Management, and look at how these technologies are designed for different sectors and tasks, to substitute or complement humans while routinizing tasks.