ABSTRACT
The ability to control unemployment under strong government stimulus to aggregate demand has allayed the fears of structural unemployment prevalent in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. 1 Nonetheless, these fears—particularly as they were related to technological change and automation—retain a certain plausibility. In theory, structural imbalances in the labor market should be forestalled by variations in relative wages and the adjustments in the composition of labor demand and supply which the wage variations induce. Innovations in technology, however, are not subject to this discipline; and it is perfectly consistent with the conventional theory for innovations to generate a set of jobs which the labor force is incapable of manning.
