I know from personal experience much of the last 5 years worth of work for me (software / algorithm design) has been building automation. Helping companies th

I know from personal experience much of the last 5 years worth of work for me (software / algorithm design) has been building automation. Helping companies that were struggling push forward by replacing human workers with software. Perhaps in the recent down years companies were pressured to become more efficient and now that the economy is picking up they are reluctant to go back to hiring people versus paying for software and automation. /completeSpeculation I can think of two companies I've consulted with since 2008 where the CEO's told me they were picking up a new contract(s) that would represent massive growth (200-300%) but that they wanted to keep their same labor force without having to hire.