The World’s Workers Have Bigger Problems Than a Robot Apocalypse

The world’s workers seem to be in a bad spot: A recent study found that each new industrial robot displaces six employees. Automation is on the rise in fields from radiology to volleyball coaching. Workers in poorer manufacturing-reliant nations are especially vulnerable, it’s said, because their jobs could soon be done by robots. Yuval Noah Harari, author of the new book Homo Deus, speculates in a recent Bloomberg View column about the rise of a huge, embittered “useless class” living on the dole.

But if work is being automated out of existence, how do you explain a 2.8 percent unemployment rate in Japan, one of the world’s most roboticized nations? What accounts for shortages of skilled workers in Brazil, India, Mexico, and Turkey? And why did U.S. employers report 6 million unfilled job openings at the end of April—the most in 16 years of record keeping?