I spent 32 years in the automotive manufacturing industry. When I hired in it took almost 4000 people across 3 full shifts to produce our products. When robotics first started appearing we laughed at them as both robots and stamping dies were destroyed while trying to implement them. 3 months and they were gone. 1 year later they were back and working amazingly well ! Within 5 years our employment went down to less than 2000 people. New tech since then has the plant producing twice as much product with only 600 employees across 3 shifts. Great for the company, Ok for quality, but dismal at best for the surrounding community's economy. Most of the restaurants, bars and other businesses that workers supported have closed up and vacant storefronts now stand where there was once a vibrant local community. Multiply this by at least 10 for just the auto plants that were nearby, many others just plain closed down and moved south of the border into mexico.