[adynatos]

so a minimum wage? great, so i'll pay half the dishwashers twice the previous wage for twice the work. or, if automation is possible, i'll pay one guy a minimum wage to look after dozens of dishwashing machines. result is less people working.

[dllthomas]

Not quite the same as a minimum wage. It's not enforced by bureaucrats, but by potential employees each individually deciding they have better uses for their time to do the work you're asking for the price you're offering.

If your workers are willing and able to do twice as much work in the same time for twice as much pay, you should likely make that switch anyway - at the least it'd save you bookkeeping, and it would be a better use of the workers' time.

And if people systematically decide that they have better things to do than a particular job, and we automate that job so we don't need people doing it, that seems like a win to me.

Whether it means less people working overall depends on how big these effects are, what the effects are on demand, and whether we couple it with other changes like a decreased minimum wage (which could lead to more people working on things which are more pleasant/fulfilling but less highly paid).