Technology-driven widespread unemployment ("the robots will take all the jobs") is, like wizards who fly spaceships, a fun premise for science fiction but difficult to find examples for in economic history. (The best example I know is for horses.)
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"Wait why did that happen?" Short version: the ATM makes each bank branch need less tellers to operate at a desired level of service, but the growth of the economy (and the tech-driven decline in cost of bank branch OpEx) caused branch count to outgrow decline in tellers/branch.
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How about bank teller employment divided by total population size?
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*squints* so it appears that the line between 1980 and 2010 goes from 500-680 (about 16%). US population grew by about 36% over the same time period.
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There are other more recent examples, though. Operators of manual telephone switchboards were a widespread job that literally was made obsolete by technology. But overall I agree with the thrust of your argument.
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Worth listening to this recent episode of Planet Money that dug up the Studs Terkel tapes. Includes an interview with a switchboard operator, now and then. She isn't the least bit saddened the job has gone away.https://www.npr.org/2019/09/13/760632634/episode-939-the-working-tapes-of-studs-terkel …
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That's an interesting statistic. Banks have definitely been closing branches a lot here, guess it isn't the same everywhere
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Full time?
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Does that change with online banking ? (I'm guessing software industry employment at banks is going up as a side-effect)
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I wonder if supermarket cashier employment will also go up as well
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