The biggest source of job losses is legislation. In many cases, the legislation forces businesses to automate. The sad thing about all this and especially the fearmongering left-leaning economists is this concept of 'technological unemployment'. It is nothing new, new technology always pushes some people out of work for a while. But the reason for so many people especially under the age of 30 being unemployed has nothing to do with automation directly, rather, the simple fact that minimum wages do not cover the productive capacity of the newer workers. They never get a foot in, and many just give into the push to study, and end up in their 40s with masters degrees and no experience in anything, maybe still living with their parents.

In effect, what I think has to happen is that a lot more, and circumstances will drive this, will choose to live in the grey or black economies. In some parts of the world this is already the norm, and is caused by overt corruption of the government. The opportunity cost of illegal or grey area work, or just simply dodging taxes, in these places, is lower than the risk of getting into trouble.

In the long run, the biggest problem is the growth of government not only consumes part of the productivity of the population, and increasingly so, it also drives more and more market activity into a dangerous place where increasing numbers of people find themselves having to go because the fences have been raised against either their particular productivity level, experience, or even industry, in some cases, and not even at all by technological advances.

If it was just about technological advances, we should be massively richer as a society by now. Sure, 1 man can do the job of 10 with some new machine, but over the following 5 years someone finds a way to train and employ these other 9 and their productivity rises to the same level as the lucky first guy. This increased wealth leads to spending which leads to more wealth, and so on.

What we are seeing in the world today is going the opposite direction. We should be and effectively are more wealthy than ever in history but governments and the special interests that capture it, have sucked out most of the gains.