I'm in the middle here. I don't think this piece holds much weight because he's connecting two unrelated phenomenon (a downturn caused by overuse of credit and automation). Note the retailers he cites (Circuit City, Sharper Image, KB Toys) were generally killed off by other local retailers (most notably Walmart but also Best Buy, Toys R Us, etc...)
That said I do believe automation will begin to eat away at jobs when we get to the point where robotics can duplicate the functions performed by low end labor. What I mean by that is up until now computers have largely replaced more cerebral occupations. That allowed the people in those occupations to move on to higher level thinking.
Think of the growth in economic theory since the computer was invented. That had a lot to do with the fact that we can now test economic models in minutes instead of months because a computer can do the calculation.
So in those cases the computer didn't replace the job it just enhanced it. But dock workers doing heavy lifting aren't going to to turn into robotics engineers. Meaning the change coming with robotics will be different from previous technology shifts. So in that sense I think he's correct.
Auto workers sixty years ago didn't turn into robotics engineers either. And, largely, they didn't have to. They moved to the niches the robots weren't yet appropriate for, until they retired.
It was subsequent generations that simply didn't have the same wrench-turning job the older generation started at. What I've observed, over my years in Detroit, is that as automation pushes into the process, complexity grows, and jobs to support that complexity push out to smaller employers. GM doesn't have a million wrench turners, but a thousand CAD/CAM shops now exist.
Many of those shops are producing parts that didn't exist before automation made the more-complex, more-specialized, more-numerous designs feasible. Before the demand for precisely-designed/machined components existed.
Are there net fewer jobs? Not that I've ever seen or read. [1]
Similarly with the journalism example in the article. Thousands of dead-tree newspaper jobs are definitely going away. But how many thousands of online news jobs were created? How many people make their living blogging? Is the overall industry of bringing written information to the masses contracting? That's another argument I'd need to see employment studies on to believe.
Lastly, current unemployment isn't structural. Despite appeals to 'what we all know', there is no data to suggest that it's caused by job types going away or job seekers having skills that no-one needs anymore. All the evidence suggests that employers simply don't need many workers right now. That is: current unemployment is just a symptom of the lack of demand.
If this time is truly going to be different, it will have to be due to factors not outlined in the article.
[1] Detroit's overall labor situation might appear a counter-argument, but that has more to do with the industry decentralizing -- away from Detroit and away from the Big Three.
That said I do believe automation will begin to eat away at jobs when we get to the point where robotics can duplicate the functions performed by low end labor.
I have seen tire factories where the only time a tire is touched by a human is at the end of the line QC inspections. They basically have two types of workers operators who feed raw materials in to the machines and clear minor jams, and mechanics who perform maintenance and repair broken machines. Sure the change over to industrial automation isn't complete but it is much further along than you might suppose.
That said I do believe automation will begin to eat away at jobs when we get to the point where robotics can duplicate the functions performed by low end labor. What I mean by that is up until now computers have largely replaced more cerebral occupations. That allowed the people in those occupations to move on to higher level thinking.
Think of the growth in economic theory since the computer was invented. That had a lot to do with the fact that we can now test economic models in minutes instead of months because a computer can do the calculation.
So in those cases the computer didn't replace the job it just enhanced it. But dock workers doing heavy lifting aren't going to to turn into robotics engineers. Meaning the change coming with robotics will be different from previous technology shifts. So in that sense I think he's correct.