Over the last few months it has become trendy to jump on the neo-Luddite bandwagon and bemoan how machines are taking our jobs, and as automation gathers pace, they will take our jobs in never before seen numbers. It's led to a renewed emphasis on policies such as the Universal Basic Income. I'm inclined to think that much of this is simply bandwagon jumping, and have argued in the past that the notion that the current revolution is somehow different to all of those in the past is not born out by the evidence, whilst at the same time admitting that governments are largely failing to do the kind of things required to support citizens in their attempts to adapt. A recent paper provides a further element of evidence to add to the discussion. It looks at the role technology plays in economic recoveries, both in terms of economic growth and the number of jobs. The paper reveals that whilst economic recoveries in previous decades would usually involve average increases in employment of around 5% per year, this has slowed significantly since the 90s.

Fulfilling the dreams of bosses everywhere, Wakamaru San is never late, doesn't gossip or throw sickies, and somewhat unnervingly never stops smirking. That's because one-metre tall Wakamaru is an android, whose idea of a tea break is to find the nearest power socket and recharge itself when its battery runs low. This Mitsubishi-made winsome bot is part of the vanguard of so-called "second generation" robots, autonomous machines designed to help around the home and workplace - permanently. In the first serious attempt to commercialise a robot that can work in the office, 10 little Wakamarus touting "strong receptionist skills" were recently taken on by an employment agency in Japan, where they are now for hire for £12,000 a year. Other bots are muscling in on Japan's increasingly mechanised construction industry, though those look far from the "humanoid" type robot, such as Wakamaru, that we have been led to expect by science fiction. In fact, really clever, human-like robots may still be decades away (see below) but gradually robot manufacturers are moving from creating machines that work mostly in the automotive sector to other industries, such as the food business, while many robots are becoming consumer products.