Friday charts: Job-pocalypse now?
The rise of ATMs in the 1990s didn't eliminate bank tellers—it made them more productive. Branches proliferated, and employment grew until online banking disrupted the model. Now, AI threatens to accelerate automation, with Stanford research showing declining jobs for recent graduates in tech-heavy fields like software engineering.
History suggests partial automation can boost employment, but full automation may not be so forgiving. The data paints a cautionary tale: AI's impact on labor markets could skip the transitional phase and go straight for disruption.