"that industrial automation has been responsible for the loss of up to 670,000 jobs since 1990. But just in the period between 1999 and 2011, trade with China was responsible for the loss of 2.4 million jobs: almost four times as many. “If you want to know what happened to manufacturing after 2000, the answer is very clearly not automation, it’s China,”"
I think globalization in general would be more accurate than "China".
Yet I also think that automation is also a factor which even though might not be the major one yet it can very well be in the near future. I'm in IT industry and I've witnessed at least one line of job going out of the window - namely manual testers- due to automation. I bet everyone has similar stories from his own walk of life. Yet most of the jobs lost in my locality was due to them being shipped to low cost countries. So - all in all- these two factors work in parallel and probably globalization is holding up automation up to a point (where automation cost > low wage worker).
I think globalization in general would be more accurate than "China".
Yet I also think that automation is also a factor which even though might not be the major one yet it can very well be in the near future. I'm in IT industry and I've witnessed at least one line of job going out of the window - namely manual testers- due to automation. I bet everyone has similar stories from his own walk of life. Yet most of the jobs lost in my locality was due to them being shipped to low cost countries. So - all in all- these two factors work in parallel and probably globalization is holding up automation up to a point (where automation cost > low wage worker).