# 3 thoughts on employment

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2017-02-20

basic-income, bill-gates, employment, jobs, robot-tax, uncategorized, universal-basic-income

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There’s lots of talk these days about how technological innovation and globalization are taking our jobs.

Of course, these are not unreasonable concerns. The [data suggests a hollowing out of the middle class](http://brandondonnelly.com/post/149648606588/the-elephant-graph) and the threat of automation feels perhaps more real than over with the recent advancements in AI and robotics.

But here are 3 things to consider and discuss:  

1) It doesn’t feel realistic to believe that the jobs which went overseas will ever return en masse – as nice as it may sound to argue that. They went overseas to take advantage of a particular cost structure and those motives haven’t changed.

2) It is not guaranteed that technological innovation will destroy more jobs than it creates. In fact, [historically the opposite has often been true](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/17/technology-created-more-jobs-than-destroyed-140-years-data-census). The jobs that were lost by technological innovation were replaced by new / more jobs and greater economic surpluses. For instance, think of agriculture.

3) But could this time be different? If we are indeed entering a new economic period, then it strikes me that 1), above, becomes even further away from the right solution. Some of the proposed solutions include [universal basic income](http://avc.com/2017/02/the-robot-tax-and-basic-income/) and [a robot tax](https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/) (links to interview with Bill Gates).

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/3-thoughts-on-employment)*