Mar 28, 2017

Study: Robots set to displace millions of U.S. workers by 2025

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin may not be concerned about losing American jobs to robots within the next fifty to one hundred years, but the phenomenon is already decades old. That's according to research published Monday by economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo who estimate that the U.S. has already lost between 360,000 and 670,000 jobs jobs to robots since 1990.

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Data: National Bureau of Economic Research; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon / Axios

A growing problem: The pace of displacement is set to accelerate from here. Acemoglu and Restrepo say that if automation proceeds at predicted rates, millions of jobs could be lost while wage growth is reduced by up to 2.6% between 2015 and 2025.

Compounding inequality: The rise of automation has occurred at a time when more income is going towards ownership relative to labor than at any time since economists began widely collecting such data. If automation is partially to blame for this shift, the increasing use of robots will only worsen the problem.

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Courtenay Brown

U.S. economy adds 145,000 jobs in final report of 2019

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Axios Visuals

The U.S. economy added 145,000 jobs in December, the government said on Friday, below economists’ expectations of 160,000. The unemployment rate held at 3.5% — a 50-year low — while wages grew 2.9% from a year earlier, the smallest gain since July 2018.

Why it matters: The U.S. job market held up in the final month of 2019, but heads into the election year with a slowing pace of job creation and wage growth.

Go deeperJan 10, 2020

Dion Rabouin

Growing divide between the two Americas

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Life in the U.S. is increasingly divided into two realities — one in which things have almost never been better and another in which it's hard to imagine them being worse.

Driving the news: Bankruptcies led more companies to announce job cuts last year than at any time in more than a decade, WSJ's Aisha Al-Muslim reports (subscription), citing data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

Go deeperJan 3, 2020

Dion Rabouin

Unemployment fell to 50-year low in 2019 but wages stagnated

Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Axios Visuals

Friday's jobs report missed expectations, but still delivered solid numbers, showing the U.S. economy added well over 100,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained near a 50-year low.

The big picture: BLS reported that the number of people who were employed part time but would rather be full-time employees declined by 507,000 over the year.

Go deeperJan 13, 2020 - Economy & Business