Automation and health and safety of workers (HSW). Evidence from literature review

This paper provides a review of the economic and empirical literature on the relationship between automation technologies – robots and artificial intelligence (AI) – and health and safety of workers (HSW). This work aims to achieve two main goals: a) to analyse the effects of automation on workers’ physical safety and mental health, and b) to identify the main gaps in existing studies. Automation has a dual effect on HSW. On the one hand, it can reduce the number of accidents and fatalities. On the other hand, it can have a detrimental effect on workers’ mental health. Finally, three main gaps are identified: a) a lack of studies on the European context; b) insufficient attention to sectoral differences; and c) differences between countries in terms of labour institutions.