Why isn't perpetual high unemployment inevitable?

[SamuelRSmith]

To quote (the guy playing) Hayek in that economic rap song:

"Jobs are a means, not an ends in themselves. People work to put food on their shelves"

Basically, there will be a point where the demand for employment will drop (we already have massive unemployment on a global scale - that's why 2 billion people live in poverty), instead of rise. As is stands, this is not yet the case - global unemployment is still falling at a rapid rate (I remember reading that a million people a week are pulled out of poverty in China alone). In fact, the long term trend still shows that for each job taken, a new job is created.

Unemployment doesn't have to equal bad. Remember that the average worker is now a lot less "unemployed" than he was centuries ago. People used to have to work 7 days a week toiling the fields, dawn to dusk - start work at ages such as 12, and not finish until you die. Now, most people work 5 days a week, 9-5, with breaks, holiday, entitlements (sick, maternity/paternity), most don't enter full time employment until their early 20s, and most retire between the ages of 60 and 70.

Why do you seem to fear that automation and increases in labour productivity = bad for everyone? Wouldn't it be better if people could continue to live better and better lives (that the cost reductions and better innovations of greater productivity allows), and also reduce the amount of time that they work? Wouldn't it be better for families, if they went back down to only having one parent work, and the other parent working significantly less? If, when people retire, they get 30 or 40 years, rather than 20. If, the education system wasn't just geared at producing workers, but also able to allow children to explore their true talents?

Now, this may seem pie-in-the-sky, but it's actually what the long-term trends show is likely to happen, as productivity increases.