Absolutely. But we can't look at workers in a dying industry like coal mining and say "Hey, your industry is dead. Time to re-train. Hop to it!" The society th

Absolutely. But we can't look at workers in a dying industry like coal mining and say "Hey, your industry is dead. Time to re-train. Hop to it!" The society that benefited from having these workers should give them time, money and resources to retrain. Some of these people have their identity wrapped up in their job (as you allude to), so the psychological jump may be the most difficult of all. Maybe we should have insurance for large industries that are essential to society (I can't see how that could go wrong!) ;)