Though Donald Trump will likely never stop bragging about the handful of jobs he negotiated to save at a Carrier manufacturing plant in Indiana, but though there are several major holes in his hero narrative, one major one has just been discovered that should put Trump’s bragging to an end for good.
According to CNBC, the carrier plant plans to use investments into the company in order to automate the factory, eventually resulting in the loss of many more jobs than any overseas move might have caused.
United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes admitted to CNBC‘s Jim Cramer that the shift to automation without a doubt means a loss of jobs – the exact thing that Trump negotiated to prevent.
“We’re going to make a $16 million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive. Now, is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost of labor? No. But we will make that plant competitive just because we’ll make the capital investments there. What that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.”
So even though Trump gave the company massive tax cuts at the expense of regular Americans, and even though they are still moving over 1,000 jobs, they are still deliberately attempting to cut down on labor, eventually costing hundreds of employees their jobs.
Considering that Trump’s strongest platform was on the promise of bringing jobs back to America, the PEOTUS seems to have never considered the massive impact that automation may have on the future of American employment.
NPR and others are wondering if the President-elect has a plan in place to address growing automation, but because he never holds a press conference, they have been unable to ask these and other key questions.
