Are robots really going to take your job?

While today's technology sectors produce fewer jobs than the ones that preceded them, their indirect impacts on job creation are far greater as they create additional demand for non-tradables in the local economy, in turn explaining the shift in employment from manufacturing to services experienced by most advanced economies. The fates of workers thus depends less on job opportunities created by biotech companies or computer firms, but on the demand for local services created by those companies. Indeed, the indirect employment impact of today's technology sectors is so critical that the future of employment is likely to depend more on the size of the multiplier than job creation in technology sectors as such. While the expanding scope of automation means that a wider range of low-skilled services will become increasingly automated, potentially reducing the size of the multiplier, demand for entirely new services is at the same time being created – Zumba instructors and Beachbody coaches are now among the fastest growing new occupations on LinkedIn. Despite technological change becoming more labour-saving and less job-creating, concerns over automation causing mass unemployment seem exaggerated, at least for now.