– Robots May Revolutionize China’s Electronics Manufacturing (Wall Street Journal, Sep 24, 2013):
A new worker’s revolution is rising in China and it doesn’t involve humans.
With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor.
A new wave of industrial robots is in development, ranging from high-end humanoid machines with vision, touch and even learning capabilities, to low-cost robots vying to undercut China’s minimum wage.
Over the next five years these technologies will transform China’s factories, executives say, and also fill a growing labor shortage as the country’s youth become increasingly unwilling to perform manual labor. How the transformation plays out will also go a long way in deciding how much of the electronics supply chain remains in China.
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China is already having well over 100 uprisings a day due to high unemployment, and a sharp divide between those who have, and those who don’t. Adding robots to cut jobs and wages even more is the worst thing they can do for their economy. Without enough jobs (look at the US), suicide rates go up, crime and other things skyrocket as well.
This story reminds me of the Shoemaker’s strike of 1852-53 in the US. The greedy guts produced shoemaking machines, and put the entire craft out of work…..they didn’t care, just like the ones we have now.
In 1852-53, there was still much opportunity for people to move west, homestead, build new towns…..the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, allowing a social mobility never seen before.
In this case, there are no opportunities, social mobility has dropped dramatically, and millions of jobs continue to vanish as the greedy guts put in robots or move the work off shore with the help of the equally corrupt congressional trade agreement.
I see no hope.
Two words – technological unemployment