scholarly journals Automation vs. Jobs

2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (04) ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
Alan S. Brown

This article examines the impact of automation on jobs. Since the end of the Great Recession in June 2009, the GDP of the United States has grown 75% as fast as its average between 1948 and 2007. Ordinarily, such growth would spur companies to hire more workers. However, the fact is that overall unemployment has hovered above 9% for most of the past three years and remains stubbornly high. The percentage of working adults is at its lowest level since 1983, when women were still entering the workforce. Instead of hiring workers, companies are now investing in equipment and technology, which rebounded quickly after the recession. Some economists contend that advanced information and communications technology is transforming the economy by capturing jobs that only humans could have done before. They even consider digital technology when looking at the potential causes of unemployment. They also believe this is a sign of deeper structural changes in the economy.

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Tobias Arnold ◽  
Sean Mueller ◽  
Adrian Vatter

Abstract Over the past decades, decentralization has become the new paradigm in how states should organize power territorially. Carefully planned institutional re-designs are the most visible expression thereof. Yet the Great Recession of 2007–2009 has pushed governments into the opposite direction, i.e., towards centralization, to better weather the fiscal drought. Given these contradictory developments, this article compares the effects of twenty-three separate state reforms with the impact of the Great Recession on fiscal centralization in twenty-nine countries over more than two decades. In the main, our analyses attribute a larger effect to design, i.e., pro-active policy making through reforms, than reactive crisis management after a great shock. However, this difference is only apparent once we consider a state’s institutional structure, that is whether a political system is unitary or federal. Our findings thus highlight the need for a multidimensional approach to better understand the drivers of fiscal de/centralization.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Dill ◽  
Robert Francis

In this study, we use the 2004, 2008, and 2014 panels of the Survey for Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to measure the impact of the Great Recession and recovery on the availability of “good jobs” for men without a college degree. We define “good jobs” using a cluster of job quality measures, including wage thresholds of at least $15, $20, or $25 per hour, employer-based health insurance, full-time work hours, and protection from layoff. We find that the Great Recession and aftermath (2008-2015) resulted in a 1-10% reduced probability of being in a “good job” across most industries, with especially large losses in manufacturing, retail, transportation, and food service (compared to 2004-2007). In the 2014 panel, there is only a slight post-recession recovery in the predicted probability of being in a “good job,” and the probability of being in a “good job” remains well below 2004 levels. Although the probability of being on layoff from a “good jobs” does decrease substantially in the 2014 cohort as compared to the rate of layoff during the Great Recession, our clustered measure of job quality shows that access to “good jobs” remains limited for most working-class men and that the recovery from the Recession has largely not reached the working-class.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 900-913 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam K. Forbes ◽  
Robert F. Krueger

The full scope of the impact of the Great Recession on individuals’ mental health has not been quantified to date. In this study we aimed to determine whether financial, job-related, and housing impacts experienced by individuals during the recession predicted changes in the occurrence of symptoms of depression, generalized anxiety, panic attacks, and problematic alcohol use or other substance use. Longitudinal survey data ( n = 2,530 to n = 3,293) from the national Midlife in the United States study that were collected before (2003–2004) and after (2012–2013) the Great Recession were analyzed. The population-level trend was toward improvements in mental health over time. However, for individuals, each recession impact experienced was associated with long-lasting and transdiagnostic declines in mental health. These relationships were stronger for some sociodemographic groups, which suggests the need for additional support for people who suffer marked losses during recessions and for those without a strong safety net.


2003 ◽  
Vol 184 ◽  
pp. 58-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary O'Mahony

The impact of recent advances in information technology on output and productivity growth has been one of the key research questions in the past few years. A consensus has emerged that the use of information and communications technology (ICT) capital has had a significant impact on aggregate economy-wide labour productivity growth through the capital deepening channel in the United States in the 1990s (see the discussion and references in the papers below). Evidence is also emerging of a delayed but nonetheless significant impact in European and other OECD economies. These findings have stimulated additional research using microeconomic data focusing on both the industry or company level.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Harper

PurposeResearch suggests that the Great Recession of 2007–2009 led to nearly 5000 excess suicides in the United States. However, prior work has not accounted for seasonal patterning and unique suicide trends by age and gender.MethodsWe calculated monthly suicide rates from 1999 to 2013 for men and women aged 15 and above. Suicide rates before the Great Recession were used to predict the rate during and after the Great Recession. Death rates for each age-gender group were modeled using Poisson regression with robust variance, accounting for seasonal and nonlinear suicide trajectories.ResultsThere were 56,658 suicide deaths during the Great Recession. Age- and gender-specific suicide trends before the recession demonstrated clear seasonal and nonlinear trajectories. Our models predicted 57,140 expected suicide deaths, leading to 482 fewer observed than expected suicides (95% confidence interval −2079, 943).ConclusionsWe found little evidence to suggest that the Great Recession interrupted existing trajectories of suicide rates. Suicide rates were already increasing before the Great Recession for middle-aged men and women. Future studies estimating the impact of recessions on suicide should account for the diverse and unique suicide trajectories of different social groups.


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