Economics

How Covid-19 Is Helping Robots Take Your Job

The need to keep businesses open while protecting workers is accelerating the trend toward automation.

Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
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Adding robots to factories, retail stores or mines was historically seen as a job killer by workers and the unions that support them. But this year, automation has allowed sectors of the economy to continue producing with fewer people, minimizing the coronavirus risk for employees. U.S. economy reporter Olivia Rockeman explains what that might mean in the long term and what needs to happen to help the displaced.