Although this almost sounds like a set-up line from the excellent Twitter feed @corbynjokes, it isn't. It results from an excellent piece of research by Deloitte's Ian Stewart, Debapratim De and Alex Cole, "Technology and people: The great job-creating machine" which was nominated for the Society of Business Economists 2014‑15 Rybczynski Prize.
The report looks at the implications of the adoption of technology on employment levels, and far from supporting the Luddite position that labour and capital are substitutes, it discovers that technology has been job creating. Even better, technology has replaced labour in occupations that are monotonous, dangerous or both and in their stead, jobs have been created in the service sector.
The findings of the report are covered in today's Guardian and it provides plenty of talking points: a change in the balance between 'muscle-power' workers and those in caring professions, sharp rises in the number of bar staff and, regrettably, the number of accountants, and a dramatic rise in the number of hairdressers and barbers.
In 1871, there was one hairdresser or barber for every 1,793 citizens of England and Wales; today there is one for every 287 people.
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