# A Better Integration of Industrial Robots in Romanian Enterprises and the Labour Market
## 3 Modelling Data Regarding Enterprises' Use of Industrial Robots: Key Findings and Main Results
### Data Collection
Another concern noticed in the case of Romania's robotics market is that small enterprises are quite reserved in implementing robotics, being \"five times less likely to use robots than large firms\" [34]. As shown in Figure 4, proving this point, a share of 13% of all large enterprises in Romania implemented service or industrial robots in 2020, while only 3% of small enterprises and 5% of medium enterprises invested in this direction. One possible explanation for such a low level of robotics use implementation percentages in the case of Romanian enterprises can be credited to the higher-than-average uncertainty about the future (81% in Romania versus 72% on EU average), which stands in the way of major investments, as highlighted by the European's Commission Country Report in 2020 [37]. When compared to the general share of enterprises using industrial robots in other countries in the European Union, Romania falls behind, registering below average results, as shown in Figure 5.  
From an industry point of view, the most robotized enterprises in 2020 were found in manufacturing-related industries. Romania follows this trend, having the highest registered share of enterprises using industrial robots out of the total enterprises using industrial robots for industries such as the manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, or other transport equipment (with 21% of all enterprises using industrial robots; 13% of enterprises in manufacturing of computer, electronic, and optical products using industrial robots; and 13% of enterprises in manufacturing of basic metals and fabricated metal products, excluding machines and equipment, using industrial robots). As shown in Figure 6, for the year 2020, the least automated of Romania's enterprises fell in categories such as accommodation, real estate, computer programming, consultancy and related activities, information service activities or travel agencies; tour operators, enterprises offering reservation services or related activities reported no use of industrial robots. Figure 4: Use of industrial or service robots in Romania, for each enterprise size, 2020. Source: Author’s Contribution. Data retrieved from Eurostat. Robotics and 3D Printing Data, [[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/f29](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/f29) db2 df-2e19-4 bfd-8 bb4-af630 dc3e9077 lang=en]([https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/f29](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/f29) db2 df-2e19-4 bfd-8 bb4-af630 dc3e9077 lang=en), accessed on 9 January 2022. When looking at the average share of manufacturing-related enterprises using industrial robots out of the total enterprises that used industrial robots in selected EU countries (with countries with missing data being excluded) for the years 2018 and 2020, we can notice that Romania still fell behind the average share calculated for both years (of 17.39%, having an average share of manufacturing enterprises of only 8.42% for 2020), as represented in Figure 7 below. Even though for most countries 2020 showed an increase in the use of industrial robots in manufacturing-related enterprises compared to 2018, Romania registered a decrease of 0.04 percentage points, which may indicate a lack of capacity for enterprises to finance new investments in equipment and technology. In order to better understand the impact that the share of enterprises using industrial robots had on the economy, we had furthermore performed a k-means clustering analysis and grouped the selected EU countries into several clusters, based on the share of enterprises using industrial robots in 2018 and 2020, assuming that each country could fit in one of the following two cluster categories:  
1. Countries with a low-to-moderate use of industrial robots in enterprises. 2. Countries with intense use of industrial robots in enterprises.