A look at the greater role automation is playing in the US, with labor shortages driving greater adoption since the start of the pandemic
but with 8.2 million fewer workers, equal to the combined payrolls of every employer in Virginia, Arizona and Iowa. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... @mckinsey_mgi : Three-quarters of companies surveyed by McKinsey Global Institute last fall said they expect investment in new technologies to accelerate through 2024. If that happens, productivity growth... could rise by a full percentage point." https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... @washingtonpost : Hiring troubles prompt some employers to eye automation and machines https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
The automation push predates the pandemic: as Davos execs described in 2019, many companies were already racing toward automation to stay ahead of competitors, with worker impact treated as secondary. What changed by mid-2021 is the trigger — the US labor market is short 8.2 million workers, and McKinsey Global Institute's survey found three-quarters of companies expect technology investment to accelerate through 2024, with a full percentage point of productivity growth on the table if it does.
The pandemic-era evidence is concrete in specific verticals: [[a:969432|fast-food chains have deployed robots from Miso Robotics and Chowbotics to fill kitchen roles]] during the hiring crunch. And the longer arc now has a measurable endpoint — [[a:1163533|2025 productivity data showing ~2.7% growth, nearly double the prior decade's average, alongside cooled entry-level hiring in AI-exposed sectors]] — suggesting the shortage-driven adoption the Post flagged became structural rather than cyclical.
First-order effects
- Employers facing the 8.2-million-worker gap substitute machines for unfilled roles now — fast-food chains running Miso Robotics and Chowbotics equipment are the visible case, and every rival in a shortage-hit market faces the same make-or-buy choice.
- McKinsey's projection gives CFOs a quantified case for accelerating tech investment through 2024: a potential full percentage point of productivity growth, converting automation from cost experiment into budgeted line item.
Second-order effects
- As [[a:937485|The Atlantic reported, automation of service work tends to reduce hours and lower pay rather than eliminate jobs outright]] — so the workers who remain absorb more intense, less visible demands, pressuring labor conditions even where headcount holds.
- Companies that automate gain a cost floor their non-automating competitors must match, extending the HR-and-workforce-management automation pattern the Wall Street Journal documented in 2017, which narrowed manager roles — the squeeze now moves from back office to front line.
Third-order effects
- If the McKinsey scenario holds, the US enters a period of structurally higher productivity growth — and the later data point of ~2.7% productivity in 2025 with AI-exposed sectors cooling entry-level hiring indicates the mechanism: firms meet demand with machines and senior staff rather than entry-level pipelines.
- The durable shift is that labor scarcity, not just cost, now drives adoption — meaning automation decisions are set by labor-market conditions, and any future tightening repeats the cycle regardless of wage levels.
The trend: Pandemic-era labor scarcity converted US automation from a cost-cutting option into a staffing necessity, with productivity gains and shrinking entry-level hiring as the measurable outcomes.