The effect of automation on employment in the axis of İndustry 4.0 concept: Example of developed countries

The development stages and results of industrial revolutions have an important place in history. The history of industrial revolutions, which started in the United Kingdom in the middle of the 18th century, changed not only the economic structure of the countries, but also political, social and cultural axis in many issues. The steam engine developed by James Watt in 1780 made the United Kingdom stand out among the developed countries of the period in terms of industrialization. In later periods, industrial development first spread to Continental Europe and then to the United States. With the development of the railway network, access to raw materials became easier, the use of more powerful machines than steam powered machines in production and the world's acquaintance with the concept of mass production led to the start of the second industrial revolution. Although the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century and the 1929 Economic Depression slowed down industrialization and technological developments, the concept of the third industrial revolution emerged with the realization of the use of computerization and communication technologies in production. The second and third industrial revolutions created important developments not only in Europe and the United States, but also in East Asian countries. With the development of information processing technologies and their integration into production, the concept of Industry 4.0 was born in 2011 and today's technological developments have brought a different dimension to the fourth industrial revolution compared to other industrial revolutions. The rapidly increasing technological developments with the fourth industrial revolution show themselves in all areas of life. Industry 4.0, the autonomous process in production, also called new generation automation, is expected to affect employment and working life with its technology-intensive production structure. With the widespread use of robotization in production, the weight of the workforce in enterprises is disappearing. Many new technological developments brought by Industry 4.0 reveal a new era in production and push developed countries, which have adopted a technology-intensive production structure for employment, to investigate the effects on employment created by this situation. In this study, firstly the concept of Industry 4.0 was discussed, in the first part, industrial revolutions were examined chronologically, then the introduction of the fourth industrial revolution and the technological components brought by this revolution were discussed in general, and finally the effects of the fourth industrial revolution on employment were investigated in general. In the second part, Industry 4.0 preparations, plans and strategies of the developed countries were mentioned and necessary explanations were made about subjects such as employment and information technology foreign trade data by making use of economic data. In the last part of the study, an empirical study in which the effect of the concept of increasing automation on employment within the scope of the Industry 4.0 revolution is examined by using non-stationary panel data analysis method in terms of developed countries is included. In this direction, an econometric model was established and the variables of this model were explained. Within the scope of the empirical model, the heterogeneity of the slope coefficients of the variables was analyzed, and then the cross-sectional dependence of the said variables was investigated. According to the results obtained, the stationarity of the data set was analyzed by using the second generation panel unit root tests and then the cointegration relationship between the series was investigated by using the second generation panel cointegration tests. In the last stage, the long-term regression coefficient of the CCE Common-Related Effects Model was estimated and evaluated together with the findings.