Exploring the future impact of automation in Brazil

Abstract

Purpose

Brazil is struggling as the unemployment rate is 12.4% and nearly 13m people are unemployed. The fourth Industrial Revolution is advancing, and the country needs to consider how it will impact the labor market. This work explores the impact of automation on the Brazilian workforce to supply decision-makers with information about the subject.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors converted the probability of computerization from the seminal work of Frey and Osborne to each of the more than 2,500 occupations in Brazil. They then crossed the automation probability with socioeconomic information about workers and companies available in the Brazilian Ministry of Labor Database.

Findings

In total, 60% of employment in Brazil is expected to be highly impacted by automation in the coming decades, with eight out of the ten occupations with the biggest workforce being highly automatable. Automation probability decreases as workers' education level increases, with the most significant difference between workers with higher education and those without it. The results show other inequalities in the impact of automation: the higher the wage, the lower the automation probability of occupations; the bigger the company, the lower the automation index; and workers from 16 to 24 years old have considerably higher chances of being automated.

Originality/value

This work is the first to study, in the context of the fourth Industrial Revolution, the impact of automation in Brazil with a socioeconomic analysis.

Citation

Lima, Y., Strauch, J.C.M., Esteves, M.G.P., de Souza, J.M., Chaves, M.B. and Gomes, D.T. (2021), "Exploring the future impact of automation in Brazil", Employee Relations, Vol. 43 No. 5, pp. 1052-1066. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2020-0364