A testable consequence of your assertion is that labor market turnover should not have been higher in previous decades than now. Do you believe this would appear in the data? Would you bet on it?
I predict that labor market turnover is higher now than it was in past decades, for as many decades as we have reliable data.
Goes and checks.
BLS data on total separations as a percentage of total employment. It only goes back to Dec 2000, but that is enough to surprise me: the separation side of the turnover fell from 4.0 to 3.2. So my hypothesis, that the rate of automation has increased by enough to significantly impact the labor market, is falsified.
Edit: Actually, after a bit more research I’m not so sure—in particular, I found this which claims that there are 2.7M temporary workers (+50% over the last four years). Converting temporary-worker count into turnover rate is tricky, but this is a symptom you’d expect if turnover has increased, and I don’t think it’s included in the BLS data.
+1 for empiricism. Although on due reflection I think the number we want is not so much turnover in people, but the number of job positions that are eliminated without someone being rehired for them. There might be economists tracking this. Turnover probably correlates with this to some degree, but not perfectly.
A testable consequence of your assertion is that labor market turnover should not have been higher in previous decades than now. Do you believe this would appear in the data? Would you bet on it?
I predict that labor market turnover is higher now than it was in past decades, for as many decades as we have reliable data.
Goes and checks.
BLS data on total separations as a percentage of total employment. It only goes back to Dec 2000, but that is enough to surprise me: the separation side of the turnover fell from 4.0 to 3.2. So my hypothesis, that the rate of automation has increased by enough to significantly impact the labor market, is falsified.
Edit: Actually, after a bit more research I’m not so sure—in particular, I found this which claims that there are 2.7M temporary workers (+50% over the last four years). Converting temporary-worker count into turnover rate is tricky, but this is a symptom you’d expect if turnover has increased, and I don’t think it’s included in the BLS data.
+1 for empiricism. Although on due reflection I think the number we want is not so much turnover in people, but the number of job positions that are eliminated without someone being rehired for them. There might be economists tracking this. Turnover probably correlates with this to some degree, but not perfectly.