The world economy's labor pains

The ongoing global economic slowdown, which began in 2008 with the financial crisis in the United States, could set a new endurance record.

This "persistent recession," as well as some of the world's political conflicts, are manifestations of a deeper shift in the global economy - a shift driven by two kinds of innovations: labor-saving and labor-linking.

Although laborsaving innovation has been with us for a long time, the pace has picked up. Global sales of industrial robots, for example, reached 225,000 in 2014, up 27 percent year on year. More trans formative, however, is the rise of "labor-linking" technology: digital innovations over the last three decades now enable people to work for employers and firms in different countries, without having to migrate.