Abstract: Artificial intelligence is being used in more and more industries. One of the important applications in manufacturing is industrial robots. There is much debate about the effect of industrial robot use on labor force with different skill structures. In this study, labor force in Chinese manufacturing is divided into three categories according to the education level:high-, medium- and low-skill, and the influence of the annual sales of industrial robots on the employment scale of each type of labor force is studied. The results show that with the increasing use of industrial robots, the employment scale of high-skilled labor force increases, resulting in the “compensation effect”, while the employment scale of low-skilled labor force decreases, resulting in the “substitution effect”, while the medium-skilled labor force is not significantly affected. The results provide evidence in China's manufacturing industry for research on the relationship between industrial robots and labor employment based on SBTC theory, and reflect the particularity of China. The implications summarized in this paper include providing appropriate knowledge and skills training for different labor forces, appropriately delaying the retirement age of high-skilled labor forces, and expanding the development space to attract more people, especially high-skilled labor forces, to work in manufacturing industry.

Key words: artificial intelligence (AI), industrial robots, manufacturing industry, labor force, skill structure