Yes, robots are replacing workers. But there's more to the story

The period covered by the study ended right before the recession of 2007–09. Acemoglu and Restrepo said the recession introduced too many variables that affected employment, which would have made it more difficult to isolate the impact of robots. So what's happened since the recession, and what does it mean for manufacturing jobs? We gathered and plotted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for various manufacturing sectors to try to get a better sense. Obviously, this type of analysis doesn't let you draw the direct conclusions Acemoglu and Restrepo were able to make about robots.