The entire point of automation is to reduce human intervention in a process. If post-automation jobs = current jobs in terms of quantity and skill, there would be no economic benefit to automation. This means that of the people displaced, only a minority can theoretically get the "new" job, and even then, that hopes that there are no already qualified candidates from outside the displaced pool ready to take that job.
It's true tech increases our quality of life, no one argues this (mostly). That said our current political climate can have it's roots traced to the fact that so many blue collar workers have been displaced (first by overseas labor, second by automation) and their uphill battle to attain new work at even living wages, forget similar wages has been largely ignored if not a target for mockery by the middle class.
We need to start taking a serious look at how to deal with the groups of people who will be displaced so far and at such advanced ages that asking them to re-enter the workforce is impractical not just for them, but for the economy at a whole. Hell, even older TECH workers have a hard time finding new work after their COBOL shop shuts down, do we honestly expect it to be any easier at all for a factory worker or coal miner? I do not understand why so many obviously incredibly intelligent people in the industries I work in and read about have such a hard time grasping that for a worker who's done what they call "dumb work" for 10-30 years will have difficulty getting an education and entering a white collar profession. That was hard for me and I was a kid!
