Digitalización y automatización de la economía españolaalgunas consideraciones

Resumen

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced companies and public authorities to accelerate the processes of digitalization of the economy, such as teleworking and contactless production activities and services (e-commerce, etc.). The gradual remission of the pandemic and the concern about high unemployment rates in a possible context of stagflation, has maintained the interest in the digital economy and the process of automation of the productive structure. The economic literature shows disparate results regarding the impact that the digitalization and automation of the economy will have on employment. Some of them predict a significant destruction of jobs that could lead to massive technological unemployment. However, this process would rather be producing a replacement of obsolete jobs by the creation of new ones arising from the new technological paradigm. Moreover, the experience of some countries shows a positive correlation between the incorporation of robots and an increase in aggregate employment. On the other hand, automation processes do not eliminate or replace entire jobs, but rather specific job tasks, especially low-skilled routine tasks. However, in this process of digitalization and automation of the economy, there are a number of challenges and obstacles that need to be adequately addressed.)