Similar demand responses are seen with computer automation. Automation drove the price of cloth down, increasing the highly elastic demand, resulting in net job growth despite the labour saving technology. For example, during the 19th century, 98% of the labour required to weave a yard of cloth was automated, yet the number of weaving jobs actually increased (Bessen 2015). The reason has to do with basic economics. This is true even if the job is mostly automated. But if a job is only partially automated, employment might actually increase. If a job is completely automated, then automation necessarily reduces employment. This distinction is important because it implies very different economic outcomes. For example, despite extensive automation since 1950, it appears that only one of the 270 detailed occupations listed in the 1950 Census was eliminated thanks to automation – elevator operators.1 Many others, however, were partially automated.
But in fact, most automation is partial-only some tasks are automated. Automation, on the other hand, might cause net job losses because machines reduce the human labour needed to produce a unit of output.Īlso, much of the discussion concerns human jobs being completely taken over by machines (e.g. Although all of these other sorts of technological change can be disruptive and eliminate jobs for some workers, there is no particular reason to expect them to create large job losses overall new jobs are created while old ones are eliminated. Information technology can facilitate new markets (e.g. the airline ticket kiosk) shift work to consumers. For example, communication technologies facilitate decentralisation, outsourcing, and offshoring, shifting work from one group of workers to another. Technology can also change work organisation. For example, the automobile eliminated jobs for carriage makers, although it also created jobs for auto-body makers. New technology can make products obsolete. But this is not the only way that new technology can disrupt the workforce. With automation, machines perform part or all of an occupational task, reducing or eliminating the human labour needed to perform that task. It is important to begin with a clear understanding of what automation is and how it affects jobs.
I use a model that captures basic economic interactions that have largely been ignored in the popular discussion, such as the effect of automation on product demand and on inter-occupation substitution.
In a recent paper, I estimate the effects of recent computer automation on employment growth in detailed occupations in the US (Bessen 2016). 2016), the view that computer automation has been causing and will increasingly generate major unemployment has prompted calls for new policies such as a minimum basic income (Ford 2015).īut has computer automation actually been generating a large net loss of jobs? Unfortunately, much of the popular discussion of automation has not benefited from either rigorous economic analysis or empirical evidence. Looking forward, Frey and Osborne (2013) project that “47% of total US employment is…potentially automatable over.perhaps a decade or two.” While others see a more modest impact (Autor 2015, Arntz et al. Some see this replacement causing technological unemployment and a slow recovery from the Great Recession (Ford 2015). New computer programs, some using artificial intelligence, are taking over the tasks of bookkeepers, bank tellers, clerks, and others (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014). Automation has become a concern not just for blue-collar manufacturing workers, but also for white-collar workers and even professionals.
0 kommentar(er)
