No Easy Fix for Workers Losing Jobs From Rise of Self-Driving Cars, Schatz Says

The rise of self-driving cars will be part of a broader U.S. economic struggle pegged to American jobs, Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told reporters last week. Both chambers are prioritizing legislation on autonomous vehicles this year (see 1702140042). “It’s going to be a challenge, but like a lot of things in technology, like a lot of aspects of technology, we can’t legislate it away from happening,” said Schatz. “We have to facilitate it moving forward where possible, make sure that the safety and privacy concerns are addressed and then deal with the society-wide problem of automation dislocating workers who used to do these important jobs.” Many of the workers who will be dislocated have done those other activities “their whole lives -- it’s not realistic to go tell them to become a tech worker,” he said. “This is happening economy-wide, and I think it’s a little simplistic to just say, ‘Well, we’re just going to retrain these folks.’ A lot of these jobs that we would theoretically be retraining folks for aren’t in the same county or state.” The answer is “not so simple,” with no obvious fix for policymakers, he said.