Automation isn't wiping out jobs. It's that our engine of growth is winding down | Aaron Benanav

Automation is a red herring. The wider environment of slowing growth explains low labor demand largely by itself

An army of robots now scrub floors, grow microgreens and flip burgers. Due to advances in artificial intelligence, computers will supposedly take over much more of the service sector in the coming decade, including jobs in law, finance and medicine that require years of education and training.

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Countries with high levels of robotization are not necessarily the ones that have lost the most industrial jobs

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Aaron Benanav is a researcher in the social sciences at the University of Chicago. He is writing a book about the global history of unemployment. This is an abridged version of his New Left Review article on automation