The pandemic and the triumph of the Luddites

It wasmeantimf to be a bloodbath. When covid-19 struck in early 2020, economists warned that a wave of job-killing robots would sweep over the labour market, leading to high and structural unemployment. One prominent economist, in congressional testimony in the autumn, asserted that employers were ”substituting machines for workers”. A paper published by the in early 2021 said that such concerns “seem justified”. Surveys of firms suggested they had grand plans to invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning.Wonks had plenty of reason to worry. Recessions cause many companies’ revenues, but not wages, to fall, making workers less affordable. Some previous downturns had produced bursts of job-killing automation, depriving people of work and leaving them at least temporarily on the economic scrapheap. Covid seemed to pose an extra threat to workers. People get sick; robots do not. Past pandemics, research suggests, have hastened automation.