WSJ Columnist: Robots Aren't Destroying Enough Jobs (foxbusiness.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Will millions be unemployed after a job-destroying robot apocalypse? That's "starkly at odds with the evidence," argues a Wall Street Journal columnist, who says the real problem is robots aren't destroying enough jobs. "Too many sectors, such as health care or personal services, are so resistant to automation that they are holding back the entire country's standard of living." Noting that "churn relative to total employment" is the lowest it's ever been, he writes that "The pessimism would be more plausible if the evidence weren't moving in exactly the opposite direction...

"In April, nonfarm private employment rose for the 86th straight month, the longest such streak on record. Monthly job creation has averaged 185,000 this year, more than double what the U.S. can sustain given its demographics. This has driven unemployment down to 4.4%, a 10-year low and below most estimates of 'full employment.' Growing labor shortages have boosted the typical worker's annual wage gain to more than 3% now from 2% in 2012, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Instead of worrying about robots destroying jobs, business leaders need to figure out how to use them more, especially in low-productivity sectors... The alternative is a tightening labor market that forces companies to pay ever higher wages that must be passed on as inflation, which usually ends with recession.

"That is a more imminent threat than an army of androids."

Comments

Because unemployment is the road to riches

[Archtech]

"Too many sectors, such as health care or personal services, are so resistant to automation that they are holding back the entire country's standard of living."

To which I reply with this:

“When the Englishman speaks of national wealth he means the number of millionaires in the country". - Oswald Spengler

As Spengler was writing nearly 100 years ago, for "Englishman" we may conveniently substitute "American"; and for "millionaires", "billionaires".

Re:Because unemployment is the road to riches

[Anonymous Coward]

Which explains why the lowest earning 50% of the citizens make so little money that they don't owe any federal income tax each year? Jobs are lost and some of them get replaced by service sector jobs that pay less and have far less stability than the previous jobs did. Right now, there's more products being manufactured in the US than ever before, but the number of workers that it takes is significantly less than it's been in a long time due to automation and robotics.

There's plenty of wealth, but the wealthy that bribe the politicians to set policies are too selfish to share it. What we need more than anything else is a guaranteed minimum salary that covers the bare necessities. We've got the money necessary to ensure that everybody who works or can't work due to disability, can afford things like food, clothes and shelter without having to completely obliterate the rich to do it.

We just lack the will because corporate media keeps gaslighting us about the reality. At some point something is going to give. Either our economy will collapse the way that the economy of the USSR did or there'll be some sort of revolution as it's pretty clear that the greedy aren't going to exercise any sense when they can just build bunkers and ever taller walls around their property.

Re:Because unemployment is the road to riches

[ooloorie]

In the long run, this is true. But in the short run, there can be dislocation of workers that lack skills for new jobs.

True. But if we design our economy around what's good in the short run, we end up with with what we are seeing: stagnant incomes and rising debt. Pretty much the most fundamental rule of economics and life is that if you want success in the long term, you need to endure hardships in the short term.

Re:Because unemployment is the road to riches

[djinn6]

Pretty much the most fundamental rule of economics and life is that if you want success in the long term, you need to endure hardships in the short term.

Since when is this a rule? What the heck is "hardships" anyways?

If a farmer has the option of sowing or eating his wheat, and he chooses to sow everything, then he will be dead long before he gets to be "successful". If the farmer sows some, but still too much wheat for him to take care of properly, then he'd have wasted them, and his half-assed attempt to farm everything might have actually hurt his total output.

Often it's a bad idea to trade consumption for investment. There are times when there is too much investment and you end up with waste. Maybe if you waited instead for a more opportune moment to use those natural resources, you could've put them to better use.

Sometimes what seems to be consumption could turn out to be investment, such as nutritious meals for kids, which promotes learning and lowers healthcare costs later.

And sometimes the consumption is not optional, such as when you tell unemployable people to go die in a ditch, and they send you and the rest of your government to the guillotines.

Re:Maybe this is a good thing?

[Opportunist]

Except that this time around there is nowhere to go. When farming got automated, people moved into towns to the emerging industries. That came with its own social problems, but at least people had somewhere to go. When industrial automation happened, people were able to move into the emerging service sector.

There is no new sector to go to for the displaced workers this time. Whatever you could come up with is just as susceptible to automation as the job you just eliminated with automation.

Re:Ha

[Sarten-X]

It's pretty much exactly that.

If wages outpace inflation*, it encourages a bubble in consumer confidence, as consumers have literally more money than they know what to do with. That in turn lowers saving rates, as people finally splurge on the luxuries they've wanted, without thinking much about how temporary their windfall is. That increases risk to future economic downturn when the income stops and they're now in debt and used to a comfortable life. In short, think of 1925, but with rampant money instead of uncontrolled debt.

Of course, there are other issues with inflation outpacing wages for too long, as consumer confidence drops and they stop spending on the luxuries they can afford. That leads to a collapsing market for anything beyond survival, cutting employment rates and pushing wages further downward, which pushes prices up, reinforcing the inflation.

Economics: The field where everything is bad for complex reasons, and you're never right about just how bad it will be.

* Note that I'm not claiming any particular wage as good or bad, just that there are risks when they don't match.

Re:Maybe this is a good thing?

[phantomfive]

Except that this time around there is nowhere to go

This is an argument from ignorance. Right now, jobs are being automated, every day. Those people are finding new jobs. You don't see how they are finding new jobs, so you assume they aren't.

We've had entire classes of jobs disappear in the last 30 years. We've had completely new jobs pop up in that time, and every time new automation comes, new jobs pop up.

Now, I think it would be great if AI replaced all our jobs, and we got a basic income in the six digit figures range, but that kind of technology is a long way from today.

Re:Yeah...

[BarbaraHudson]

Terrible. If this continues for another century, people might actually make up much of the wage stagnation that's happened for the last 40 years. What a f*cktard. Technology can't destroy this useless shill's job fast enough.

Re:Actual wage levels are irrelevant

[demonlapin]

His workers were paid enough to afford to buy the cars they were building.

But that's not why he got rich. He paid what he did in order to get the best workers. So, yeah, if you can identify the most productive workers in society, and use higher wages to get them all working for you, you will absolutely be well-positioned to beat your competitors. That's not the same as saying that raising the general level of wages will somehow automatically increase productivity. The best workers aren't going to stick around and deal with your demanding schedule if they can get the same amount of money for less work at another business down the street.

Re:Yeah...

[Hognoxious]

But who writes those news articles?

An infinite stack of turtles, perhaps.