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Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation
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In this essay, I begin by identifying the reasons that automation has not wiped out a majority of jobs over the decades and centuries. Automation does indeed substitute for labor—as it is typically intended to do. However, automation also complements labor, raises output in ways that leads to higher demand for labor, and interacts with adjustments in labor supply. Journalists and even expert commentators tend to overstate the extent of machine substitution for human labor and ignore the strong complementarities between automation and labor that increase productivity, raise earnings, and augment demand for labor. Changes in technology do alter the types of jobs available and what those jobs pay. In the last few decades, one noticeable change has been a “polarization” of the labor market, in which wage gains went disproportionately to those at the top and at the bottom of the income and skill distribution, not to those in the middle; however, I also argue, this polarization and is unlikely to continue very far into future. The final section of this paper reflects on how recent and future advances in artificial intelligence and robotics should shape our thinking about the likely trajectory of occupational change and employment growth. I argue that the interplay between machine and human comparative advantage allows computers to substitute for workers in performing routine, codifiable tasks while amplifying the comparative advantage of workers in supplying problem-solving skills, adaptability, and creativity.
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“With each wave, however, human effort has not been removed, but rather redirected.”
From The views of health guideline developers on the use of automation in health evidence synthesis (2021) · cites this paper as [15]
In the citing paper
“From the late nineteenth century onwards, there have been repeated waves of automation of production and consequent population-level job panic [15].”
From The views of health guideline developers on the use of automation in health evidence synthesis (2021) · cites this paper as [15]
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“In some cases, job opportunities have expanded rather than contracted as a by-product of widespread automation.”
From The views of health guideline developers on the use of automation in health evidence synthesis (2021) · cites this paper as [15]
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“For instance, even though present-day machines can conceive messages perceived as more empathic than messages conceived by humans 170,171 , such messages may be perceived differently once recipients become aware of their artificial origin.”
From Machine culture (2023) · cites this paper as [170]
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“This corresponds to Autor (2015)’s hypothesis that while very low-end and very high-end jobs will remain, several middle-level jobs will be lost, such as financial analysts, routine trading functions, paralegals, HR roles, loan officers, financial advisors, etc.”
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“…has emerged about the sectoral employment impact of artificial intelligence and robots, opposing scholars confident in the complementarity between these new technologies and humans (Autor, 2015) and those predicting mass unemployment across a wide range of jobs and tasks (Frey and Osborne, 2017).”
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“By examining what workplace technologies actually “do” in the work environment, it was suggested that work tasks change because of technological developments (Autor et al., 2003; Autor, 2015).”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Autor, D. H.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Autor, David H.
- ORCID
- Autor, David H.
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Perspectives
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2015-08-01
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 3-30
- ISSN
- 0895-3309 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1821977771
- Cited by
- 3,917
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 697 · 2025: 579 · 2024: 457 · 2023: 364 · 2022: 309 · 2021: 345 · 2020: 349 · 2019: 312 · 2018: 263 · 2017: 153 · 2016: 72 · 2015: 9
- FWCI
- 398.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Journal of Economic Perspectives (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Economy and Work Transformation
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Growth and Productivity
- Keywords
- workplace automation, labor substitution, labor complementarity, labor demand, labor supply, labor market polarization, wage inequality, artificial intelligence, robotics, career change, job creation, routine tasks, problem-solving skills, comparative advantage
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