good question, thought experiment

and I guess it depends upon which circles you run in. Economists will blame technological advances for increased productivity as well as increased unemployment.

But what is the breakdown of labor arbitrage vs. technological advances? I don't know. Right now most economists will not even mention or look at what global labor arbitrage is doing to the U.S. workforce, economy, it's a real Ostrich head in the sand because it goes against their philosophies or religion.

That said, technological advances do and can displace workers, especially structural shifts. The thing is, we really have not had a major technological shock, really since 2000 when communication prices dropped and high bandwidth technology (high speed internet) became so available. We've had advances, everything from less fighting your computer and applications to smart phones, wireless and advances in robotics, advanced manufacturing.

But nothing "earth shattering" such as the car, the airplane, the computer.

Some of this has to be technological advances but the fact we have raging employment and exports in China, plus the India offshore outsourcing industry has been and is growing at double digit rates, imply direct worker labor arbitrage is taking it's toll.

The problem is this is "political" so getting real data to analyze is near impossible. You have to "assume" and estimates and unfortunately most of those assumptions are coming from "fiction land" by the forementioned groups in this post.

Usually a technological advance would do something like "wipe out 10-key data operators" or "wipe out" hand plows, i.e. certain direct occupational areas which the technology has directly replaced...

Anyway, great question.