[astrange]

Automation increases employment.

The mechanism which causes job less is that when your competitors automate, all the business goes to them because they're more productive.

[littlestymaar]

Well, maybe look at how many people worked in the agricultural sector is 1900 and how many do so today.

Automation of field labour has decreased the worker count by a factor 20 or something.

Same for the mining sector.

It's not necessarily a bad thing as working in the fields or in coal mines wasn't pleasant, but pretending automation doesn't reduce employment is nonsense.

[astrange]

Did those people become unemployed? (Not because of that they didn't. There was a Great Depression and a few wars that could've caused it.)

They mostly stopped working in those fields because everyone hates farming and mining and quits the first chance they get.

Here's recent evidence from Canada, Japan and Spain showing automation caused employment increases:

https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2020.3812

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3377705

https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/etidpaper/20051.htm

[littlestymaar]

> Did those people become unemployed?

Either unemployed or forced to work in even less desirable places, yes.

> They mostly stopped working in those fields because everyone hates farming and mining

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984%E2%80%931985_United_Kingd...

No matter how hard the work conditions are, people don't usually accept its disappearance.

Automatization reducing work can actually be a good thing, as it is the reason why we can have vacations, retirement and long studies: because the society's need for work is lower than before.