This is a good reminder that automation is a global economic trend.
Rapidly growing appetite for industrial robots in China is set to hasten the decline in manufacturing jobs, according to the findings of an FTCR survey.
As part of a top-down push, local governments are subsidising companies to produce and purchase robots, while most companies reported productivity gains and forecast a reduced need for frontline workers.
This is not a zero-sum game: companies also cited a growing need for more skilled workers. This is creating demand for vocational skills and the robot revolution will be able to absorb only a minority of such workers.The increasingly rapid adoption of industrial robots on Chinese production lines is set to hasten the fall in manufacturing employment. Among companies that intend to purchase robots in the coming 12 months, 72.7 per cent said this would mean job losses, according to an FT Confidential Research survey conducted across manufacturing centres in Guangdong in the south and Zhejiang on the east coast.
Somebody tell Bernie Sanders his socialist bretheran in China are betraying the socialist faith by embracing capitalist progress.