A new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research presents sobering statistics that illustrate the impact automation is already having on the workforce, noting that each industrial robot introduced between 1990 and 2007 lead to the loss of 6.2 jobs.
Few subjects are quite as divisive right now as the potential impact of automation on employment. Some, like U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, believe we needn’t be concerned, while others assert that we are already at the start of the biggest workforce upheaval since the Industrial Revolution.
Now, a new paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) puts an actual number to the threat of automation: each industrial robot introduced in the workforce between 1990 and 2007 coincided with the elimination of 6.2 jobs within the commute area. Wages also saw a slight drop of between .25 and .50 percent per 1,000 employees when one or more robots was added to their workforce.
The report’s authors, economists Daron Acemoglu from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University, predict that we could see as much as a .94 to 1.76 percent decline in the employment-to-population ratio by 2025. By 2025, the Census Bureau estimates the United States’ population will reach 347.3 million. That means between 3.3 to 6.1 million jobs could be lost to automation.
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