The sleight of hand here is the qualifier "in the here and now" (notice that this doesn't make it into the article title). If I've understood Yang's position correctly, it's that we need to develop policy proactively for this likely future.
No, he pretty clearly claims that job loss at the present is from automation. Here is a quote from an oped he wrote:
"It’s easy to cite incomplete statistics that ignore the full picture and the situation on the ground, but I’ve done the math while spending time in struggling communities. Venture for America, the nonprofit I founded, sent me across this country, to Detroit, St. Louis, Birmingham, Ala., and other communities, where we attempted to spur entrepreneurship and create jobs. It was during this time when I spoke with workers who had lost their jobs to automation and couldn’t find more work. My organization was helping to create jobs, but automation was displacing tens of thousands of workers in these states. We were pouring water into a bathtub with a giant hole ripped in the bottom."
