This must be made clear: Robots, not China imports, are behind US job losses

THE US Republican and Democratic presidential nominees delivered economic addresses last week that focused on the plight of blue-collar workers who lost their jobs in the industrial sectors of manufacturing and coal mining.

Both the Republican nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic counterpart Hillary Clinton decided to give their economic speeches in Michigan, which - like other Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ohio - has undergone a devastating process of de-industrialisation resulting from automation and globalisation.The blue-collar workers have become the main victims of this process, after having spent much of their work lives in manufacturing, such as in the once-booming Detroit auto industry. Now in their late 40s and with families to support, they realise that their jobs have disappeared and are not coming back.

 These unemployed workers are mostly white men without college degrees or skills that enable them to compete in the advanced sectors of the 21st century; they suffer the economic pain and personal blow of losing a job. The strains from what is a never-ending period of joblessness can devastate entire communities, which are now plagued by higher rates of drug addiction and suicide.