Tech Has Never Caused a Job Apocalypse. Don’t Bet on It Now.

Neither theory, history nor the latest data suggests a recession driven by AI job dislocation is likely  

By Greg Ip. Excerpts:

"Technological advancements always cost some people their jobs—those whose skills can be easily substituted by tech. But their loss is more than offset through three other channels. The new technology enhances the skills of some survivors, who become more productive and better paid; it helps create new businesses and new jobs; and it makes some stuff cheaper, increasing consumers’ incomes, adjusted for inflation, which can be spent on other stuff, generating yet more jobs."

"The ranks of software developers, widely assumed to be acutely vulnerable to AI, are up 5% in January from a year earlier, a pace largely consistent with the past 23 years."

"The number of computer programmers, who assist developers in ensuring code runs properly, was down slightly in the last year, in line with a secular decline in place for decades. Neither trend shifted much after ChatGPT’s arrival in late 2022."

"In 2024, the median young computer science graduate earned 63% more than the typical young graduate, up from 47% in 2009"

"business spending on software leapt 11% in the fourth quarter of last year from a year earlier, the fastest in nearly three years"

"This . . . is in line with previous technological advances that drive prices down and demand up enough to offset direct job displacement"

"examples include textile manufacturing in the 19th century, and the spread of ATMs in the 1980s."

"As the number of bookkeepers shrank with the introduction of spreadsheet software in the early 1980s, the number of accountants and financial analysts newly empowered by Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel rose even more."

"Employment of 22- to 25-year-olds in the most AI-exposed occupations such as software developers and customer-service agents fell 6% in the three years after the introduction of ChatGPT"

"Radiologists were supposed to lose their jobs to offshoring, and then to AI. They didn’t, because patients and providers like having humans around to explain their medical images. Since Google Translate launched in 2006, the number of human translator and interpreter employees in the U.S. has risen 73%."

"The money employers or consumers save as AI eliminates jobs doesn’t disappear; it gets spent on something else."

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