Technology makes a lot of manual work unnecessary. But the salaries that are saved are available to be spent on hiring people for other things.
Which is why mechanizing the farm didn't leave 80% unemployment in its wake.
The market for labor is like any other market. If prices are allowed to fluctuate, supply will continuously adjust to meet demand and vice-versa.
But if prices are kept artificially high, there will be a surplus. More workers will try to get the higher wages and jobs that are unprofitable for employers at the high price will not be filled.
You may not like, you may not even want to understand or acknowledge it, but this is how people behave in any market.
While I agree that it frees up manual labor it raises another specter. The unskilled manual farm-hand labor shifted to unskilled manual manufacturing labor.
We're now telling people well past their prime to switch to more cerebral jobs because we've automated or outsourced the low-skill value added jobs and the pool of what's left drives down wages further due to all the people competing for them.
The problem is that we've increased productivity efficiencies and passed the savings onto the shareholders. A free market is efficient, not perfect.
Frankly, I don't see how it is a problem. It is a continuous process in a developing economy. And its the process that makes capital available for all kinds of human investments.
I can assure you there is job security in a completely stagnant economy. But not very much capital for education, startups or mortgages, or freedom to live your life and take the risks that make it worth living.
Which is why mechanizing the farm didn't leave 80% unemployment in its wake.
The market for labor is like any other market. If prices are allowed to fluctuate, supply will continuously adjust to meet demand and vice-versa.
But if prices are kept artificially high, there will be a surplus. More workers will try to get the higher wages and jobs that are unprofitable for employers at the high price will not be filled.
You may not like, you may not even want to understand or acknowledge it, but this is how people behave in any market.