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Robots Create Jobs
Willow Garage
Robert D. Atkinson|MIT Technology Review
Many experts would have us believe that robots and other technologies are behind the job drought. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Technology never has destroyed jobs on a net basis and it won’t in the future.
The reason why job growth slowed after 2000 was largely demographic. The number of adults in the workforce (employed and unemployed) grew 18 percent in the 80s, 13 percent in the 90s but just 8 percent in the 2000s as baby boomers got older and women’s entrance into the workforce peaked.
The data are just as clear on the lack of a relationship between productivity and unemployment. If “robots” really are the cause of today’s sluggish job growth, then productivity growth should be higher since 2008 than before. In fact, from 2008 to 2012 productivity growth was only 1.8 percent while from 2000 to 2008 productivity grew 2.6 percent while we had close to full employment.
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