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In the natural world, matter is neither created nor destroyed, but things are transformed. The same is true in the economic world. When new technology destroys, it leaves behind a layer of ash in which new jobs grow.
In New York City the car replaced the horse carriage within the first 15 years of the 20th century, killing off the carriage trade and giving birth to the taxi trade — as well as to highly paid auto mechanics. Uber threatens the taxi trade, and the self-driving car threatens the Uber driver. But it has also brought multimillion-dollar signing bonuses for self-driving-car engineers and created new opportunities for mechanics. People tend to find a way to work with and profit from new technology.
Doomsayers argue that Uber epitomizes the problem: Yes it creates new jobs, but they are mainly low-wage, part-time and without much in the way of benefits. Even the better jobs, like self-driving-auto engineer, are so few that they only widen the gap between the haves and have-nots.
No doubt, the boom in jobs has not yet been accompanied by a meaningful increase in wages for most workers. But one reason goes back to demographics: More highly paid older workers are retiring, holding down the average wage. Another is the opening of China, which flooded the global market with new workers — but that one-time impact is receding. Janet L. Yellen, the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve and a labor economist, has been skeptical about signs of improving wage growth. But she noted in late September that by some measures, wages “have clearly picked up.”
The percentage of companies that report difficulty finding qualified workers is back to levels last hit before the Great Recession, and many have responded with plans to increase wages and signing bonuses — “possible harbingers of stronger wage gains to come,” according to Ms. Yellen. The latest jobs report confirmed her optimism, with hourly wages rising 2.9 percent from last year, the fastest rate yet recorded in this recovery.
The dire view taken by economic populists and writers denouncing the rise of the robots is no longer the view of most American households. The share of workers who are in part-time jobs has actually been falling since 2010, and the number of reluctant part-time workers — those who would prefer full-time work — has fallen to five million from around nine million. The number of discouraged workers — people who have given up looking — has fallen back to levels last seen before the 2008 recession.
At the same time, the share of households who say “jobs are plentiful” is at the highest level in nearly two decades. A new Pew Research survey shows that most Americans do not think automation threatens their own jobs. And over the past 20 years, at least some of the industries that have created the most jobs are also quite well paid, including professional services, management consulting and computer systems design.
United States consumer confidence, which often reflects trends in the job market, is at a peak surpassed only a few times since the early 1960s.
There are still reasonable questions about whether many jobs of the future will be well paid. But there is no evidence so far to support forecasts of a nearly jobless future. If robots threatened human labor, human joblessness would be growing. But it’s not. In fact, since 2008, job growth has been strongest in countries like Germany and Japan, which deploy the most robots.
The pain being felt right now is a symptom of rapid churn, as old industries retreat and new ones emerge. It is no accident that dystopian visions of a jobless future are often reported from Rust Belt cities or rural towns, where manufacturing is indeed dying and good jobs are far from plentiful. But at least some of the workers laid off by shuttered Main Street stores have been hired by Amazon warehouses, which can pay higher wages — all because they work with robots that make them much more productive.
Today, many politicians and editorial writers frame every policy proposal, from cutting taxes to raising trade barriers, in terms of the number of jobs it will create. But they should recognize that while the world faces many problems, from rising inequality to angry economic populism, job creation is not one of them.
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