> Even if all the replaced people aren't unemployed, salaries go down and standards of living for them fall off a cliff.
Salaries of the remaining people tend to go up when that happens. And costs tend to go down for the general public.
Owners are actually supposed to only see a temporary benefit during the change, and then go back to what they had before. If that's not how things are happening around you¹, consult with your local market-competition regulator why they are failing to do their job.
1 - Yeah, I know it's not how things are happening around you. That doesn't change the point.
>Salaries of the remaining people tend to go up when that happens.
You're telling me with a straight face that after a company replaces part of its workforce with tech/automation, salaries go up? Really? Please show me some data on that because every single graph I've ever seen of salaries must be wrong then. We've had an enormous amount of innovation and breakthroughs in the last decades, but weirdly enough all salaries remain stagnated. If this is true, they should be going up constantly every time we offshore some work or get more efficient technology.
The company can have 50000% growth and salaries will NOT go up. They basically never go up unless the companies want to retain an employee that's at risk of leaving and the replacement cost is high.
The objective of a company is to give money to its owners, nothing else. Salaries are viewed as a cost, so they will never willingly increase their costs unless it's absolutely necessary.
> And costs tend to go down for the general public.
Assuming there aren't monopolies involved and it's a commodity, yes, that sometimes happens. If there's any monopoly involved, unfortunately companies will simply pocket the difference.
Salaries of the remaining people tend to go up when that happens. And costs tend to go down for the general public.
Owners are actually supposed to only see a temporary benefit during the change, and then go back to what they had before. If that's not how things are happening around you¹, consult with your local market-competition regulator why they are failing to do their job.
1 - Yeah, I know it's not how things are happening around you. That doesn't change the point.