This work investigates the impact that the change in the exposure to robots had on the Italian local employment dynamics over the period 2011-2018. A novel empirical strategy focusing on a match between occupations’ activities and robots’ applications at a high level of disaggregation makes it possible to assess the impact of robotization on the shares of workers employed as robot operators and in occupations deemed exposed to robots. In a framework consistently centered on workers’ and robots’ activities, rather than on their industries of employment, the analysis reveals for the first time reinstatement e↵ects among robot operators and heterogeneous results among exposed occupations.

JEL Classifications: J21; J23; J24; O33.

Keywords: Robots, Employment, Activities, Tasks, Robot applications