With new developments in robotics and artificial intelligence, academic practitioners and business consultants have estimated potential job loss. The study examines how the most recent robotics technology differs from past technological shocks and whether robotics technology has the potential to shake the work world in the foreseeable future. This is done by examining whether the past two decades of exponential growth in the number of robots have left enough of a footprint on labor outcomes. The rapid deployment of robots in US industries at the turn of the twenty-first century is treated as a supply shock to the US labor market. Its effects are compared to employment and wages and the entry of millions of immigrants over the same period. Based on data collected on employment and earnings of all workers from the American Community Survey, the study employs ordinary least squares to estimate the impact of robots or immigrants on employment and wages. It is found that the influx of industrial robots into an industry over time is associated with a substantial fall in employment and earnings that is concentrated on less-educated workers in occupations that experts view as automatable. The entry of an additional robot reduces employment and wages by more than the entry of an additional immigrant. Although the number of robots per worker is too modest to be a major determinant of wage and employment patterns, continued exponential growth of robots could disrupt job markets in the next decade or so and merits monitoring and analysis.
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