Automation and labour in the Brazilian car industry

Abstract

This article analyses the implications of new automation technologies for labour in Newly Industrialised Countries, by way of a case study of the Brazilian car industry. The research revealed no technological unemployment at the aggregate level but labour per unit of output decreased in automated production lines. The share of skilled workers increased mainly due to an absolute increase of maintenance jobs. Skill requirements within maintenance rose. In contrast the share of production workers and their skill requirements decreased. In comparison with car plants in advanced countries, the displacement of operators remained selective, restricted mainly to operations strategic for quality. Integration of line operations, whether carried out by robots or people, increased. As a result, electronics‐based automation has not superseded Fordist work organisation but reinforced it. However, due to high costs of interruption, management was increasingly concerned with workers’ reliability and sought to stabilise the labour force. These and other results are used to reflect on the differences in automation and labour utilisation between advanced and Newly Industrialised Countries.

Notes

Hubert Schmitz is a Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex; Ruy de Quadros Carvalho is Research and Planning Officer at the Institute of Economic and Social Planning (IPEA) in Brasilia. A good part of this article is based on team research sponsored by the International Labour Office and the United Nations’ Development Programme (Project BRA/82/024) and carried out under the auspices of the Institute of Economic and Social Planning (IPEA/IPLAN). The authors are grateful to their collaborators, José Carlos Peliano, Martha Cassiolato, Nair Bicalho de Sousa, Leda Gitahy and Ricardo Neder for permission to draw upon the findings of the joint work. For the full research report, see Peliano et al. [1988]. Parts of the research findings are also presented in Carvalho [1987]. The purpose of this article is four fold: (1) to distil further the main findings from a very detailed investigation; (2) to sharpen the analysis; (3) to set the Brazilian experience in an international context; and (4) to make at least some of the research available in English. The responsibility for everything that is said in this article is entirely the authors’.