The Industry 4.0 revolution might take away many millions of US jobs in the upcoming decade. This has been opined by Daron Acemoglu, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Speaking to the media, the renowned American economist said, “There’s a real mismatch between our institutions and the technologies coming on board.”
Chinese state news agency Xinhua also reported that, industrial robots have been replacing a range of low-skill and medium-skill occupations.
Industrial robots have already been taking away human jobs in the US since 1990.
In a research done by MIT economists, Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, in March 2017, they estimated that the US has already lost between 360,000 and 670,000 jobs to robots since 1990.
In an aggressive scenario, Acemoglu estimates in the paper that industrial robots will lead to a 0.94-1.76 percentage point’s lower employment to population ratio and 1.3-2.6 per cent lower wage growth between 2015 and 2025, indicating millions of workers could lose their jobs in the next decade.
