Opinion: No, That Robot Will Not Steal Your Job

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Opinion: No, That Robot Will Not Steal Your Job

The recovery from the crisis of 2008 has been one of the weakest on record, but never in postwar history has so little growth created so many jobs. The unemployment rate in the developed world is down to 5.5 percent and approaching a 40-year low. This flies in the face of all the dire warnings about a “jobless future.”

There are jobs, jobs everywhere. Unemployment in Germany is now lower than at any point since the country reunified in 1990. It is hitting lows last seen in 1975 in Britain and 1994 in Japan. The United States jobs report on Friday showed a slip in job creation, a result of the devastation of the recent hurricanes, but unemployment dropped yet again, to just 4.2 percent from 4.4 percent, both lows rarely seen in the past half-century.

How is it that the aftermath of 2008 could do so much damage to the economy, yet lead to such a low unemployment rate? One answer is demographics: The world is aging, and the number of people entering the work force every year is slowing sharply.  . .

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