Resources identified with The Future of Work theme will spotlight forces affecting work, the workforce, and the workplace.
The connection between recessions and automation.
Brookings article that suggests automation happens in bursts, concentrated especially in bad times such as in the wake of economic shocks, when humans become relatively more expensive as firms’ revenues rapidly decline. At these moments, employers shed less-skilled workers and replace them with technology and higher-skilled workers, which increases labor productivity as a recession tapers off.
As for what all of this means for the future, the potential of an automation surge reinforces the structural change in the labor market and its demand for skills.
