“Broadly speaking, many — perhaps most — workplace technologies are designed to save labor,” wrote MIT economist David Autor in his 2015 paper, “Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation.” “Given that these technologies demonstrably succeed in their labor saving objective and, moreover, that we invent many more labor-saving technologies all the time, should we not be somewhat surprised that technological change hasn’t already wiped out employment for the vast majority of workers?, asked professor Autor.
The answer, he noted, underlines a fundamental economic reality that’s frequently overlooked: “tasks that cannot be substituted by automation are generally complemented by it.” Automation does indeed substitute for labor. However, automation also complements labor, raising economic outputs in ways that often lead to higher demand for workers. Articles often overstate the extent of machine substitution for human labor “and ignore the strong complementarities between automation and labor that increase productivity, raise earnings, and augment demand for labor.”
Most jobs involve a number of tasks or processes. Some of these tasks are more amenable to automation, while others require judgement, social skills and other human capabilities. But just because some of the tasks have been automated, does not imply that the whole job has disappeared. To the contrary, automating the more routine parts of a job will often increase the productivity and quality of workers, by complementing their skills with machines and computers, as well as enabling them to focus on those aspect of the job that most need their attention.
The advent of automated teller machines (ATMs) in the 1970s is a case in point. By 2010, there were approximately 400,000 ATMs in the US. But, not only were bank tellers not eliminated, but their numbers actually rose modestly from 500,000 in 1980 to 550,000 in 2010, driven by two major forces. First, as a result of IT advances that reduced the costs of operating a bank branch, the number of urban bank branches increased significantly by 2010. Second, while most of the routine cash-handling tasks of bank employees were automated by ATM technologies, IT-based innovations enabled a broader range of bank employees to become involved in relationship banking, providing a variety of relationship-based services to customers, including credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, and investment options.