"People often complain that the introduction of new labor-saving machines costs workers their jobs. However, most new technologies create more jobs than they destroy"
The people that are complaining have the right to. There are people who depend on these jobs to pay for child support, insurance coverage, food, schooling, house utilities, bills, cars and other necessities of living. Many people that lose their jobs are forced to relocate or God forbid, become homeless because their employer doesn’t have to pay a machine to a job that’s assumed to be twice as time and labor efficient than a slow. Yes, the employer or whoever pays the company’s expenses has to pay for the cost of operating such a machine, which can potentially; end up costing a great deal more than paying workers. And of course, there’s always the risk of the machine being defective or not making mistakes, which will cost the company both time and money. The jobs that are created with these machines are probably the same as the ones that the machines are replacing. And that is assembling the machine; it takes time and work to do it. Such technological equipment can be complex and is likely to require prior work experience with said technology. Then there are the retailers who buy it from the manufactures to sell on the market and the retailers may have to open knew sections of their stores or whole other stores dedicated to selling of these machines and require specialized salesmen to sell. If there’s a high volume, these salesmen will branch out and train other people to sell it. There may be a high volume right away, which requires more people to be trained at a faster rate. The shops that sell these machines need cashiers; shelf fillers, maintenance crews and regular sales staff to make the store that’s selling these machines operate properly. The machine may require someone(s) to manually operate said machines, which requires experience but there are jobs available. So, in my estimation, there is a potential job growth with this new technology, but its minimal and many unreliable variables come into play.