The Impact of Automation on the Labor Market in Central and Eastern Europe

Talk by Magdalena Knapińska (Poznan University of Economics and Business) as part of the Research Seminar Series of the IOS Economics Department.

The aim of this research is to examine the mechanism driving changes in the labor markets of selected Central and Eastern European countries as a result of the automation process. Labor markets are undergoing numerous interrelated transformations, such as an aging population, rising education levels, increasing women’s participation in employment, growing inequalities, higher labor productivity, enhanced digital skills, and the expansion of digitization and automation in the production of goods and delivery of services. These processes are unfolding with varying degrees of intensity across the selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Some of these changes may be driven by automation, robotization, and the development of artificial intelligence. 

The proposed research project will identify factors that describe automation processes and may potentially affect the labor market and then examine how these factors influence specific aspects of the labor market in Central and Eastern Europe (such as labor supply, labor demand, wages, and unemployment). 

The results of the research will enable the evaluation of the impact of automation on labor markets in different countries within the region during the period 2010–2024. The study will identify groups of countries that share similar scales of automation-driven changes and assess the extent and nature of labor market transformations—particularly in labor supply, labor demand, wages, and unemployment—induced by the processes of automation.