Economics

Automation, broadly referring to the adoption of machines and computers in the production process, has become increasingly common across many sectors and countries. For example, the market for industrial robots has experienced a dramatic expansion in the last couple of decades, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 2 | Projected Job Growth and Mean Annual Wage in the US (2014-24) Top quintile (above $66,790) Second quintile (below $66,790 and above $44,040) Third quintile (below $44,040 and above $33,280) Quintiles of employment in 2014: occupations with mean annual wage Fourth quintile (below $33,280 and above $26,380) Fifth quintile (below $26,380) O 1,000 2,000 3,000 Total projected job growth 2014-24 (thousands of employees)Figure 1 | Annual shipments of industrial robots worldwide (thousand units) 1 630 563 484 421 381 294 254 221 178 166 159 120 111 114 113 121 99 97 81 78 GO 60 200OF 2005 2010 2015 18F 19F 20F 2021FDiscuss how the trend shown in Figure 1 would affect the employment rent of workers employed by firms that are likely to use industrial robots in their production processes in near future. Your discussion must start by explaining the concept of the employment rent