I tend to believe MIT who spent considerable time and effort into this survey than your theory of mergers. They also weren't just talking about the past 8 years but the exponential development of future technologies such as robotic vehicles. There are roughly 3.5 million truck drivers in the USA alone and they support an additional 5 more million in restaurants and motels and this is just one area they are talking of automation. This subject needs a vast discussion from society and not just a nod saying new jobs will appear, when in fact they aren't to the extent jobs are vanishing. 

In a widely noted study published in 2013, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne examined the probability of computerisation for 702 occupations and found that 47% of workers in America had jobs at high risk of potential automation. That's a lot of jobs vanishing no matter how you look at it.