Companies, overwhelmingly located in the United States but including some in Canada and Mexico, ordered just over 44,100 robots in 2022, an 11% increase over the previous year and a new record, according to data compiled by the Association for Advancing Automation, an industry group also known as A3. The value of those machines totaled $2.38 billion, an 18% increase over the prior year, according to the data.
Full article, HERE.
I remember a couple of years ago a discussion over the ‘breakpoint’ where robots were actually cheaper than human operators due to not having to pay salary, taxes, SSI, etc… Apparently $15 has decided a number of operators to go that way!
No time off, no reporting late for work, no spitting in the food, no whining about repetitive tasks, no backtalking to customers, none of that.
And now 44,100 ‘$15/hr’ entry level jobs are GONE…
Gee… what will the operators do next, I wonder?
Having worked with Industrial Automation for 20 yrs, the job types haved shifted. You may have fewer operators but robots and automation require far more maintenance and engineering support. They are also extremely stupid where tolerance stacking and virtual limits are concerned. I had to correct these issues five to six times per shift for EACH robot. They also love to destroy parts and these parts are NOT consumables. Even machine vision doesn’t help with these issues but actually exacerbates it.
Having done this also, for 40 years, I concur.
We have a number of $20/hour operators who sit around waiting to fix a weld or react to scrap or load fresh parts and take welded parts out.
Robots do a lot of jobs that are actually dangerous to humans.
Loading/unloading presses, etc.
One of the big benefits to manufacturing is that robots FORCED tighter tolerances for assembly, as Dean referred to.
The simpler the job the less costly it is to automate it.
Fast food service is not particularly complicated. So it
will be quickly automated into oblivion. Would like to see
numbers for how many jobs are automated away versus how many
new jobs maintaining and overseeing the automation are created.
And the costs saved versus the new costs for these new jobs.
In some instances the bean counters may realize the cost vs
benefit numbers aren’t what they first thought they were.
People tend to dislike repetitive tasks performed in a difficult environment.
The only reason some of these jobs have been staffed by humans in the past is that people tend to dislike poverty and starvation a LOT more than they dislike repetitive tasks performed in a difficult environment.
I’ve held a few factory jobs that had aspects that a properly engineered robot could do better than a human.
The key to that sentence is the phrase “properly engineered.” You have to invest a LOT of time writing software and constructing devices to make a robot that can be purchased by a mom-and-pop ceramic glaze factory.
The cited robot purchases work out to a smidge over $53,968.25 per robot, if I’ve done my math correctly. I don’t see that as being in the budget for a small business owner.
I also worked as THE Computer Guy for a small sales outfit, trying to customize some version of Dbase (V, I think) to track aspects of their sales and marketing. They eventually couldn’t pay me enough to keep the system operational. Plus, I sucked.
Still easier to produce unskilled labor the old way, I think.
It’s all fun and games until they organize.
UAW United Automated Workers.
I’d like more information about what is considered a robot for this report.
In the past, when I looked into it, “robots” were mostly CNC machines (who usually have a skilled operator) , not what we tend to think when we hear “robot”.
I would not be surprised to hear of more computer controlled water jet and plasma cutters, milling machines, etc were being bought as the price drops.
It wouldn’t be surprising if they included large 3D printers in the total either.
In this instance, industrial robots are any sort of machine that automates the production process.
So, from your automobile assembly robots to the burger cooking and assembly robots to the parts-picking robots to the cleaning robots to the lawn-mowing robots (yes, there are lawn-bots, some are quite sophisticated) to phone answering ‘robots’ (okay, basically a computer that has the user select options), all are ‘robots’ of various types. Including your CNC machines.
The above list of machines includes cleaning and janitorial, landscaping, secretarial and receptionist, parts picking and delivering, and just about every step of the manufacturing process. Most of the jobs replaced by the robots are low-wage entry to mid-wage blue collar positions.
Sooo… where’s a person to learn job skills, money skills, people skills?
And the rush to $15/hr or more has destroyed jobs and raised costs across the board. Stupid stupid socialist scumbags and the idiots who have no idea how to properly see connections and interactions and cause-and-effect.
The purpose of a business is to allow people to work together to provide goods or services beyond that of an individual. It is NOT to make money. Of course, you have to make a profit showing you can meet the need and be minimally efficient. Current thought today is businesses exist to make large amounts of money for people at the top and to hell with the workers and customers.
Look up the minimum wage in 1980. Go to the CPI calculator and run it forward till today. CPI is currently 5.7% less food and energy! Our grocery budget would be up by over 30% had we not changed our diet as a result. So as an exercise add 1% error to CPI for the last 43 years. Bottom line $15/hr is pretty much minimum wage from when I was a kid. Raises are 6%, at least where I’m part time (I’m semi retired) so people are falling further behind based on those wages. So to get better wages you go find a new job based on experience from the old. This is why
Sales Associates know very little about what they sell. As soon as they know anything they take the next job. I recently moved to a rural area where people are staying in their jobs long enough to be competent and it’s awesome.
Let me add most of those $15/hr jobs are part time, no benefits. The manufacturers around here pay $17-21/hr. Not much better, but at least benefits. There are substantial public assistance programs for many low wage earners, but that just causes price distortion on labor. Further you need Govt taxes and administration to support.
Businesses do NOT pay taxes. Their customers do. Taxes are a cost passed on to the consumer (I used to do pricing). Simply, the taxes being paid by the business go to support the public assistance programs, but also the bureaucrats that administer such programs. The model of inefficiency which means higher cost.
Pay bananas, get monkeys. Leadership 101, you want winners, you have to treat them like winners. Paying people the minimum says they are the minimum and guarantees they do the minimum. Or as one wag put it, “you pay me enough to show up but not enough to care.”
Additional food for thought. While working at a big box store people would ask if I could assemble bikes for their kids for them. They had neither the tools nor the know how. Neither our parents or schools are not teaching our kids how to maintain our civilization. If we taught even a modicum of economics and engineering/shop in schools kids would realize green energy is a scam.
Addendum – You’re chasing a false supposition that every robot eliminates a job. Certainly they have to pay for themselves. The robots I’ve worked with and sold enhance productivity and safety. Robotics are NOT the problem and should be embraced.
As a school child in ~1970 I remember school books talking about how technology would reduce the work week and give us more free time as well as improving earnings per hour for the same work enhancing prosperity. Rather than eliminating jobs robots could reduce the 40 hour work week to 39, 38, 37,…
Current conditions are the opposite. What world are we leaving our kids and grand-kids?
Evils in no particular order
1) Globalism – the opposite of nationalism. Sounds good but is used to hide screwing over your own tribe (Nations are big tribes)
2) Greed – both corporate (I know one CEO who makes >1,000,000 while paying <$10/hr to some employees) and Govt (not just waste of tax payer money, but Biden isn't the only one getting 10% for the big guy)
3) Outsourcing jobs (An outcome of 1&2)-sending our money overseas meaning less for our children.
4) Unconstrained illegal immigration. At current levels it is an invasion. They also cause wage depression while taking on more public services. This is also feeding the drug trade and human trafficking. Outcome of #1
5) Failure of our checks and balances which has led to a Govt not interested in improving the life of the middle class.
6) Handing over care of our poor and unfortunate to the Govt. This significantly divorces us from our local communities.
7) Poor education. Not only the economics mentioned above, but as a farmer the amount of garbage I see about how to raise food is vast, much of it pushed by big agri-business. Education is necessary to tune the BS meter and enhance detection.
8) Discrimination against jobs associated with infrastructure. Blue collar is needed, should be respected and should be rewarded.(By the way, for Ralph Camden there are some hi-tech robots to support sewer and water systems)
9) Feminism – we convinced whole generations that a woman's career is more important than her family. Men & women have bought into this. This hides that 2 parents need to work to afford having children under current economic conditions. This has diminished both men and women and enhanced no one at the expense of our kids. Further it has denigrated marriage and the importance of 2 people working as a team to build the future. (PS I'm not misogynistic. Women have held way more power historically than we are led to believe. In the 1700 and 1800's women were much more literate than men who were mostly underpowered tractors by today's standards. Even with power equipment I spend a lot of my day physically moving stuff and my farm is small. My wife runs the accounts, sets the budget, etc.)
Sorry for the rant but I'm really tired of people bashing younger generations who are as we taught them to be. Typically these same people don't do the math or even think about how little purchasing power is in $15/hr. To few people even have a thought that technology should be allowing us to live better with less work but missing the point we are moving in the opposite direction.
A lot of these robots are replacements for elderly robots that need to be retired.
I work with a number of those.
Humans are crafty, soon learn how to cause problems with the automation, and enjoy the mayhem they cause.
Given the tech savy of many young people, I wonder how the fast food job market will shift in the not-so-distant future. Some of the high schoolers who are programming their parents’ remotes may find work as cheaply paid maintainers of the robotic equipment that replaced their predecessors.
We have a customer’s customer that makes a product that has a lot of manual handling of the part. Our customer is building them a 10 station big ass robot “helper” that takes most of the by-hand product handling out of the system. Operators are now closer to each other physically, doing less heavy lifting, and able to produce 50% more products per shift. It was less of a “replace people with robots” and more of a make this process more efficient and easier on the workers.
And lower cost allowing them to stay employed onshore.
Dean/Dan- Both excellent points! And those techs are NOT going to be $15/hr
Pat- Concur. Re the cost, a $15/hr employee costs $34,000+ per year, so the robot is paid for in less than two years. Also, the ‘average’ buyer is a corporation with franchises.
Gerry- LOL
Jon- Supposedly ‘food service’ type robots.
Beans- Agree!
Jess- Yes, security WILL be an issue.
Bob- No idea, but possible
Ben- That actually makes sense and makes more money for the company.
Point out the REAL minimum wage = $0 an hour.
Watch eyes bug out.
Yeah cheap fun but “Annoy A Liberal” s my favorite sport.
Ed- Good point.
Stretch- Yeah… sigh $1.25 was what ‘I’ started at…
Point of Order:
Who’s going to be installing and fixing those 44K robots when they need service or break down, and how much do those jobs pay per hour?
Looks to me like robots are only bad news for unskilled stupid people who can’t read a manual.
People who can build, install, maintain, and repair them will clean up.
Nobody worth their salt whined or peed their pants when bulldozers replaced 2000 retards with shovels and wheelbarrows. Least of all the guys who learned how to be mechanics for them.