While stocks are soaring, so are applications for unemployment. Applications for jobless aid are still about seven times higher than before the pandemic, and people are lining up outside unemployment offices, desperate for help. Economists remain concerned that new applications for unemployment aid — even in July — remain above a million a week.
“You will have a whole host of jobs that will potentially be automated,” said William Rodgers, chief economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers. “A lot of employers are asking: Do we cut jobs and not bring employees back? Or do we automate the position?”