While watching Bill Maher last night, I heard a common economic myth that I thought I should clear up.

“We Are Losing All The Jobs To Robots”

So, lets take a look today at the data to see if this thesis makes any sense.

I have asked this question for many years. Where on this chart did we lose all the jobs to robots?

Job openings per sector:

Yes this is manufacturing job openings!

Other sectors look the same too.





Get my drift!



Total Job Openings

From Doug Short:

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/JOLTS-and-the-Business-Cycle

One of the reasons I had a 2% handle with my GDP predictions over the years is that prime age labor force growth peaked in 2007. Its only slowly growing again now, but we should have better demographics in the next decade.

Household formation is a big key for solid consumption. Young people need to buy stuff because they haven’t before, while older Americans tend to save more in their mid 50’s until death. Ages 17-29 and ages 49-65 are very heavy in this cycle.

Census population map very useful.

http://www.census.gov/popclock/?intcmp=home_pop

We can see here prime age labor force growth peaked in 2007, unlike the 1980’s and 1990’s

From Calculated Risk:

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/



Another myth, we don’t make anything anymore. Yes, technology has displaced some workers in the manufacturing sector but we are still the 2nd biggest manufacturing country in the world .

Have a wonderful Happy 4th of July weekend!

Just remember, when (They) say, we have lost all the jobs to robots, we have over 154 million working Americans, 81.5% full time working profile and highest job openings in the 21st century!

Logan Mohtashami is a senior loan officer at AMC Lending Group, which has been providing mortgage services for California residents since 1987.