"As with many technological advancements, new types of mobility—including autonomous vehicles—will likely prompt gains in efficiency and productivity, making each mile of travel meaningfully less expensive. That can leave consumers with more surplus income to spend for other goods and services. Where might that income go, and what jobs might accompany it? As demographic trends collide with new types of mobility, we could easily imagine that aging Baby Boomers will need aides to travel with them to medical appointments and run errands—even if “driving” is not part of their job description. Travel and leisure will likely continue to grow. In general, there will likely be an expanding market around mobility management services that could offer incremental job growth.”
“This prediction has one obvious catch: the ability of the US education and job training system (both public and private) to produce the kinds of workers who will thrive in these middle-skill jobs of the future can be called into question. In this and other ways, the issue is not that middle-class workers are doomed by automation and technology, but instead that human capital investment must be at the heart of any long-term strategy for producing skills that are complemented by rather than substituted for by technological change”
According to the texts:
autonomous cars can't possibly impact unemployment in the long run, but they may create structural unemployment in the short run because of sticky wages.
autonomous cars will force people to spend more time looking for a job, therefore increasing frictional unemployment.
autonomous cars initially create structural unemployment, which can be offset by job creation in other sectors like mobility management, travel and leisure industries, as long as workers are well trained and prepared to be reallocated to the new middle-skill jobs.
autonomous cars create more surplus in the economy, shifting the long-run aggregate supply to the right and reducing cyclical unemployment.
