The technologies based on artificial intelligence and robotics are one of the leading challenges facing us now with regards to the future of human work. The so-called Industry 4.0 is placing various business models in doubt, transforming training requirements for the system of production, and is progressively impacting on the distribution of profit.

The Spanish labour market provides a good example of how this new wave of technological change can have an impact on the levels and especially the structure of employment. A growing polarisation can be seen in labour demand and employment opportunities in accordance with educational levels and the various effects of labour imbalance, which are principally attributable to the characteristics of a dominant production model that is intensive in tasks of a routine nature but not particularly active in the incorporation of emerging technologies.

This article analyses the relationship between the uses of Industry 4.0 technologies (I4.0), the value generation and firm results. Based on a sample of 1,525 Spanish industrial firms for 2014, the uses of four basic I4.0 technologies are identified: 1) computer-aided industrial design (CAD); 2) robotics; 3) flexible production systems; and 4) the activity’s numerical control machinery and software, an additional indicator is constructed and the statistical association with the value generation and firm results are studied. The research has obtained three main results. First of all, it is worth noting its incipience. 72.5% of Spanish industrial firms either do not use or use very moderately the I4.0 technologies. Despite of this and secondly, it should be noted that the uses of these technologies are associated with a value generating process in industrial firms which is more intensive in R&D and human capital, more innovative, more digital and more sustainable. And, thirdly, the research also concludes that firms with more intensive uses of I4.0 technologies have better results in terms of sales, value added, exports and gross operating margin. Productivity and employment results are especially relevant. I4.0 intensive industrial firms are 30% more efficient than firms that do not use these technologies. They are also able to take on a much larger number of employees (twice the industrial average) and to pay them much better (12.4% above the industrial average). Finally, the article also discusses the role that I4.0 could play as a new general purpose technology.

Concern for the future of employment is a recurring theme whenever a process of disruptive change in technology takes place. Economic analysis has shown that technology does not destroy work, but it skews skills and abilities, and displaces tasks, jobs, occupations and people. Generally, in the long term, the consequences of these technological waves on work tend to be positive because they are linked to increases in productivity, new economic activity, higher employment and salary improvements for people working in firms or sectors related to technological innovation. In addition, the effects of job substitution can be offset in the long term if firms’ strategies and policies, especially in terms of human resource management, take the form of active employment policies that train and reskill displaced people. This general form of interaction of technology with work has been questioned with the recent digital wave characterized, among other factors, by the explosion of intelligent robotics. According to some authors, the rate of substitution of human labour by robots will be so fast that they can hardly be compensated by the usual route of increases in demand and productivity. Other authors argue just the opposite, and frame the current dynamics within the context of the traditional interactions between technology and work. However, robotics is non-human work, has very particular and dynamic characteristics, offers a wide range of possibilities of use and, at the same time, generates fears too. In this article, we will analyse the employment implications of new robotics, paying special attention to the human resources management.