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From 1999 To 2016, America Lost 11.4 Million People From the Workforce (washingtonpost.com)

Andrew Van Dam, writing for the Washington Post: Where did all the jobs go? Well, we're finally starting to find some satisfactory answers to the granddaddy of all economic questions. The share of Americans with jobs dropped 4.5 percentage points from 1999 to 2016 -- amounting to about 11.4 million fewer workers in 2016. At least half of that decline probably was due to an aging population. Explaining the remainder has been the inspiration for much of the economic research published after the Great Recession.

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  1. Re:Automation by E-Rock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's so obvious that people who track this stuff for a living aren't sure.

    I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have any data, or just your gut?

    Where I work zero jobs were lost to automation. All of our cut jobs just had their duties dumped on someone else, who in 2009 was just happy to still have a job. Unfortunately after a decade, the company, and some employees, have forgotten that what they do used to be three jobs.