Fewer jobs, better jobs? An international comparative study of robots and ‘routine’ work in the public sector

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12323
• Author: Jonathan Payne,Caroline Lloyd
• Date: 01 March 2021
• Published date: 01 March 2021

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Fewer jobs, better jobs? An international

comparative study of robots and ‘routine’work

in the public sector

Caroline Lloyd

1

| Jonathan Payne

2

1

School of Social Sciences, Cardiff

University, Cardiff, UK

2

Department of Politics, People and

Place, Faculty of Business and Law, De

Montfort University, Leicester, UK

Correspondence

Jonathan Payne, Department of Politics,

People and Place, Faculty of Business and

Law, De Montfort University, The

Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.

Email: jpayne@dmu.ac.uk

Funding information

British Academy/Leverhulme ‘small

grant’, Grant/Award Number: SG170935

Abstract

Routine manual work is often considered particularly

vulnerable to digitalisation. Alongside potential

employment effects, jobs are expected to change in

terms of task and skill requirements. This article

contributes to debates on the pace of digitalisation and

the impact on low-skilled manual work through a

study of transport robots in public hospitals in Norway

and Scotland. Drawing on qualitative research, the

findings are used to analyse the role of unions, as part

of ‘country’and ‘sector’effects, shaping digitalisation

and its outcomes.

1|INTRODUCTION

A range of commentators claim that a ‘new’age of digital automation, driven by robotics

and artificial intelligence, heralds a bleak future of mass unemployment (Brynjolfsson &

McAfee, 2014, Ford, 2015, Frey & Osborne, 2017). A series of critiques have followed,

questioning the pace of technological change and whether this will lead to widespread job

destruction (Arntz et al., 2016). Critics highlight the cost of investing in automation, barriers

presented by cheap labour and the disruptive nature of implementation (Fleming, 2019;

Thompson, 2020; Upchurch, 2018). Besides job replacement, there are questions of how jobs

change and whether workers benefit or not in terms of skills and job quality (Edwards &

Ramirez, 2016). These debates have reignited discussions around the ‘social shaping of

technology’(MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1999) and the role of institutions, actors and power in

shaping work outcomes (Lloyd & Payne, 2019).

Received: 17 February 2021 Accepted: 21 February 2021

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12323

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2021 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Industrial Relations. 2021;52:109–124. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/irj 109

‘Routine’manual work, often described loosely as ‘low skilled’, is seen as particularly ripe

for automation (Frey & Osborne, 2017). However, there are problems in determining what con-

stitutes ‘routine’work (Pfeiffer, 2016), with much of the discussion at a generalised or abstract

level. Outside of the ‘gig economy’, evidence is lacking on actual developments in the use of

digital technologies within particular sectors and workplaces. A few studies are beginning to

emerge (Rolandsson et al., 2019; Stroud et al., 2020), but we still know little about the processes

of implementation or how lower skilled jobs are changing, not least in the public sector.

To make substantive advances in identifying and explaining worker outcomes requires

grounded research that can explore the inter-relationships between workplace, sector and

national influences in shaping digitalisation (Lloyd & Payne, 2019). Focusing on a specific

robotic technology used in logistics in public hospitals in Norway and Scotland, this article con-

tributes to debates on digitalisation and low-skilled manual work, and whether beneficial out-

comes are possible. It examines the role of national institutions, actors and power in shaping

the pace of digitalisation, how jobs are being reconfigured at workplace level, and the potential

for different worker outcomes across sectors and countries.

Scotland and Norway are selected for their highly contrasting labour market and welfare

regimes, with Scotland part of the UK ‘neo-liberal’model and Norway identified as ‘social dem-

ocratic’(Esping-Andersen, 1990). The strength of Norwegian unions and their role within insti-

tutional structures, from national policy to workplace level (Løken et al., 2013), would suggest a

greater role in technological change and more scope to influence job design. However, Scottish

hospitals do not conform to the ‘typical’UK workplace, with relatively high union density and

sector collective bargaining. The National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland also has a distinc-

tive approach to governance and management, alongside stronger institutional forms of

‘partnership working’, compared with NHS England (Bacon & Samuel, 2017). The article con-

siders, therefore, whether country differences in union involvement in digitalisation and work

design are narrowed in the hospital sector, and what this might mean for worker outcomes.

The specific technology examined is an ‘automated guided vehicle’(AGV)—a programma-

ble robot capable of autonomously picking up and transporting carts and cages containing

items such as waste, linen and food. It is claimed AGVs can replace lower-skilled, ‘routine’

manual work across many sectors, including healthcare (Frey & Osborne, 2017, pp. 260–261),

bringing positive outcomes for workers' occupational health. Although AGVs have been around

for decades in manufacturing (Dankbaar, 1988), their use in hospitals remains somewhat novel.

The study explores the motivations for adopting AGVs in hospitals and, in the context of

embedded collective organisation, the role that trade unions play in their introduction. It

assesses the benefits and challenges of adopting these systems in practice, and how jobs are

affected in terms of employment, tasks and skills. The findings contribute to debates around the

pace of digitalisation, through assessing the potential for widespread diffusion of AGVs in hos-

pitals and whether there are country differences in worker outcomes.

The article begins by situating the study within the critical literature on digital technologies

and routine work. It then examines how AGVs have been promoted as a means of improving

efficiency and occupational health in healthcare logistics and the challenges faced. The inter-

play between sector and country effects are highlighted by an overview of key features of public

hospitals in Norway and Scotland. The methods section outlines the qualitative research under-

taken in five hospitals using AGVs. The findings analyse the decisions driving investment, the

process of implementation, the benefits and challenges of using AGVs, and the reconfiguration

of jobs and skills. The final section discusses the contribution to an analysis of country and

sector effects, the role of unions, and the potential for beneficial outcomes for workers.

110 LLOYD AND PAYNE