Not necessarily. If the costs drop as a result of increased efficiency and that's what leads to more sales, it would be unfair to say that not hiring extra workers is like lost jobs.
That's fair-ish, though I think if the costs drop, it at least part of the time means the demand is not being met by some other competitor, who will likely get forced out of the market, which will cost jobs.
> though I think if the costs drop, it at least part of the time means the demand is not being met by some other competitor
Massively false, in fact you've got it exactly backwards. See: very well recorded 50 years of industrial revolution era history.
The price of consumer goods, and the cost of producing them, dropped aggressively for decades during that time. It was not due to the lack of competition (demand not being met by another company); competition was the reason for it. Specifically, competition competes the margin away.
Input costs and end consumer prices would rise if the demand were being left unfilled by other companies (ie if the market were, for some reason, totally or partially devoid of competition), until competition arrived again. The lack of competition tends to inflate costs across the entire supply chain.
That's just moving the needle though. Demand for lower prices from a competitor would likely come through some efficiency and humans are the most inefficient part of most enterprises - so more than likely there would be less and less job growth over time anyway. What you describe is creative destruction, except Amazon is doing it to themselves.
I totally agree. Like I said in my first post, I think this is great. But I think the way it's being framed as not killing jobs is disingenuous. It is killing jobs, and that's ok. That's the way progress works.
