The fourth industrial revolution will possibly have widespread ramifications for the economy. Over the past decades emerging technologies have buttressed growth which has consequently positively affected employment. Nonetheless, the upcoming era of digitalization is likely to disrupt this equation. Labor markets, especially those where the industrial sector, transportation, and logistics represent a large portion of the overall gross value added, can face increasingly negative consequences. This is due to further robotization and automatization which are predicted to progressively substitute for a considerable share of the human workforce in these market segments. Currently, particularly the Central and East European countries (CEE), namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland enjoy a low unemployment rate which by June 2018 stood at 2.4%, 3.6%, 3.7%, respectively. Unavailable workforce not only drives local salaries to a new levels, but simultaneously pressures local companies to adopt revolutionizing technologies. On the other side, data indicate that local labor markets remain heavily dependent on the industrial sector. In 2017 employment in industry as a percentage of total employment in the individual CEE countries ranged from 30% in Hungary to 38% in the Czech Republic. This research is predominantly a theoretical analysis focusing on the CEE digitalization dilemma–where local countries are intrinsically driven to digitalize their economies, on one hand, while potentially facing labor market ramifications for doing so, on the other. There are currently two key theoretical viewpoints regarding automation risks for a labor market. First Bessen, 2015; Graetz and Michaels, 2015; Gaggl and Wright, 2015; Cortes and Salvatori, 2016; Gregory et al., 2016 maintain that no clear negative causation between automation and rising unemployment has been found. Second Frey and Osborne, 2013; Arntz et al., 2016; Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2017 assert that vast negative effects of automation on employment exist. This research, also using several indicators and data sources, such as, Industrialization Intensity Index, Competitive Industrial Performance Index, World Robotics Report etc. strives to contribute to the current academic debate by focusing on Central Europe–where current rapid automation efforts and large manufacturing employment levels create an ideal setting for such analysis. Research implies that should the CEE countries succeed in pursuing the highest degree of digitalization the implications for local labor markets would be considerable in terms of the lost jobs. Yet, results simultaneously indicate that avoiding digitalization efforts would result in diminishing competitiveness of the local industrial and manufacturing base.