Labor-short Japan more at home with automation than U.S.

There is an entire class of people in the US who have lost their jobs to machines and their skills are not longer needed. They are starting to get mad, and elected Trump.

Japan really believes technology will rescue it from it's own shortcomings. It won't.

The corporate culture in the USA is different. Unskilled workers don't seem to keep training themselves and companies do not train most of their workers either. The worker has to take the initiative. Companies seldom force training onto workers, but often pay for college courses and complete degrees, if the worker asks and does the school work with consistently good results. I had to maintain a B or above average to keep having the company pay for my graduate classes.

When there is a shortage of workers, everyone likes automation. In the USA, there is a shortage of IT workers, but not a shortage of unskilled workers, where automation is most effective.