Employment Policy Brief
New automation technologies and job creation and destruction dynamics
This policy brief addresses the following question: is the labour-replacing potential of the technological revolution so far-reaching that it is inherently different from what has been experienced in the past, and on balance is an inhibitor rather than a generator of decent work?
Is the labour-replacing potential of the technological revolution so far-reaching that it is inherently different from what has been experienced in the past, and on balance is an inhibitor rather than a generator of decent work?
This policy brief addresses this question providing the following:
- a critical review of recent empirical studies on the effects of new automation technologies on jobs;
- a discussion of multiple job creation and destruction dynamics and how these can offset each other at different levels of aggregation;
- a discussion of the prospects for reshoring (a reversal of offshoring by multinational enterprises) resulting from new automation technologies;
- a closing discussion addressing the possibility of a bias of perception resulting from the anthropomorphic characteristics of many new automation technologies and – even in the absence of overall job loss – the need for progressive policies to address the probable tendency towards growing inequality and the challenge for workers of transitioning from old to new jobs.
This policy brief addresses this question providing the following:
- a critical review of recent empirical studies on the effects of new automation technologies on jobs;
- a discussion of multiple job creation and destruction dynamics and how these can offset each other at different levels of aggregation;
- a discussion of the prospects for reshoring (a reversal of offshoring by multinational enterprises) resulting from new automation technologies;
- a closing discussion addressing the possibility of a bias of perception resulting from the anthropomorphic characteristics of many new automation technologies and – even in the absence of overall job loss – the need for progressive policies to address the probable tendency towards growing inequality and the challenge for workers of transitioning from old to new jobs.