John Oliver says your job may vanish due to robots and automation, that isn't all bad, and Trump isn't helping

"Jobs were a major theme in Donald Trump's presidential campaign — along with, of course, walls, taco bowls, allegations of sexual assault, and admissions of sexual assault," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. "But Trump's primary focus as candidate and president has been on jobs — specifically, who was stealing them." He ran though a list of potential job-stealing countries that Trump might be mispronouncing, in sometimes NSFW ways, and Russia. "And look, some manufacturing jobs are gone because they went overseas, but Trump is completely ignoring another major factor behind job losses: automation," Oliver said. "Its impact has been massive."

"You wouldn't know it from how Trump talks, but our manufacturing sector now produces twice as much as it did in 1984, but we produce it with one-third fewer workers," Oliver said. "Many of those jobs aren't being stolen, they are disappearing because machines are now doing them. And thanks to advances in AI and robotics, there are concerns that this sort of job loss could accelerate."

But "while people often talk about automation in apocalyptic terms," it's complicated, Oliver said. For example, machines "have had hugely beneficial effects — they've made goods cheaper and jobs easier and sometimes safer," and automation sometimes transforms jobs instead of eliminating them, like ATMs and bank tellers. Still, for employers, "the big selling point for automation is that it increases productivity and it maximizes profits," he said. and it isn't going away.

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"So the big question here is how do you harness what is good about automation while minimizing the damage to those hurt by it?" Oliver said. "Well, the best thing would be if America were in the hands of someone nimble and forward-thinking." He pointed to Trump's Carrier debacle and shook his head. Oliver had some ideas for helping workers displaced by robots but said we also need to prepare "the next generation for the possibility that they may need to be more flexible in their career plans." Watch Oliver try to explain that to adorable kids below. Peter Weber

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