China's Factories Accelerate Robotics Push as Workforce Shrinks (wsj.com) 23
China installed almost as many robots in its factories last year as the rest of the world, accelerating a rush to automate and consolidate its manufacturing dominance even as its working-age population shrinks. WSJ: Shipments of industrial robots to China in 2021 rose 45% compared with the previous year to more than 243,000, according to new data viewed by The Wall Street Journal from the International Federation of Robotics, a robotics industry trade group. China accounted for just under half of all installations of heavy-duty industrial robots last year, reinforcing the nation's status as the No. 1 market for robot manufacturers worldwide. The IFR data shows China installed nearly twice as many new robots as did factories throughout the Americas and Europe.
Part of the explanation for China's rapid automation is that it is simply catching up with richer peers. The world's second-largest economy lags behind the U.S. and manufacturing powerhouses such as Japan, Germany and South Korea in the prevalence of robots on production lines. The rapid automation also reflects a growing recognition in China that its factories need to adapt as the country's supply of cheap labor dwindles and wages rise. The United Nations expects India to surpass China as the world's most-populous country as soon as next year. The population of those in China age 20 to 64 -- the bulk of the workforce -- might have already peaked, U.N. projections show, and is expected to fall steeply after 2030, as China's population ages and birthrates stay low.
Part of the explanation for China's rapid automation is that it is simply catching up with richer peers. The world's second-largest economy lags behind the U.S. and manufacturing powerhouses such as Japan, Germany and South Korea in the prevalence of robots on production lines. The rapid automation also reflects a growing recognition in China that its factories need to adapt as the country's supply of cheap labor dwindles and wages rise. The United Nations expects India to surpass China as the world's most-populous country as soon as next year. The population of those in China age 20 to 64 -- the bulk of the workforce -- might have already peaked, U.N. projections show, and is expected to fall steeply after 2030, as China's population ages and birthrates stay low.
Interesting (Score:3)
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Can you say "One Child Policy"? Sure you can...
Do the math sometime, and see what happens to your workforce over a couple generations if you forbid anyone having more than one child...
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One of the things that's funny is seeing everyone here on
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I don't know that the boom is over yet [worldometers.info].
Population is still growing at 81 million people per year. That's a lot. It HAS been higher, and we have seen a significant decline in birth rates globally since the 70s or so, but population is still clearly on the rise and may remain so as far as we know.
I will believe the boom is over once the population growth rate drops to or below zero people per year.
You think communist China (Score:2)
You'd also think communist China had a public health care system instead of a private one but here we are.
It's almost as if a country can call themselves whenever the hell they want.
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whaaa my my Marxist bullshit failed again, quick find some no true Scotsman excuse about how the chairs were not quite arranged in a perfect circle or whatever.
No way its because a central committee could not actually implement distributions resources equitably in a nation as large as China or that health care is similarly to hard to do without a large private market place... no could not be that.
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Are you waiting for the state to wither away?
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Informative)
Many of those urban youths are unemployed, but they also have college degrees. China just graduated 11 million new college graduates, and most of them can't find a job. That's a hit in the mythos of the Chinese miracle.
The best way to do this is to start reinventing their manufacturing to look more like the US. The US manufacturer is the most productive in the world; China produces $7,318 per worker when the US produces $98,990 per worker. It doesn't mean that the US worker is any better or more skilled, rather it means that US manufacturing leverages significant automation so each worker is just more productive. Because the workers are more productive, it also enables the creation of jobs with higher skills, reducing the need for low skilled jobs.
The labor market is not one monolithic thing, rather it's made up of numerous niches. You or I cannot successfully apply for a job for, say a Master Welder position, and we likely would not take a fast-food store position. Much of this youth unemployment appears to be a mismatch in terms of labor skill/quality and the jobs available, so automation creates a need for more highly skilled worker jobs. Notably that also increases wages for those youths, which meets the promise.
This is a highly difficult transition for a country to make though; it's referred to as the Middle Income Trap [wikipedia.org]. China is doing their best to navigate it; and that's how I read at least this combination of automation increase and youth unemployment.
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So what I'm hearing is, China should switch from coffee to tea to boost the job market for baristas?
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Except there’s only one country so far that’s escaped the middle income trap without establishing a western-style system. Which country is that, you might ask?
DoesntExististan
Maybe the Chinese will pull
That's one way to spin it (Score:3)
"Accelerate robotics push as workforce shrinks" eh?
The crucial missing bit of information here is that the same people are doing the robotics acceleration and the workforce shrinkage...
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Robotics "push" is driven by the bosses in order to shrink the pesky workers.
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Population collapse (Score:3, Insightful)
China is ahead of the West in terms of population collapse by something close to 10 years. The population collapse we're about to see shortly in the West is already several years into swing in China.
The only way to avoid severe economic downturn and rising costs as a result - all other economic pains aside - is to automate our way out of it with robots and take advantage of already-existent sources of energy (nuclear).
With the world already in the throes of global depression, food shortages and war, it's unlikely that the developed world will be producing enough food for the populous, growing parts of the world to survive, either.
There's unlikely a way to turn this ship around, because the global elites are deadset on destructive 'green' policies. Hundreds of millions will die, and many others will fail to thrive.
As long as there's a line at the boarder... (Score:5, Interesting)
China is ahead of the West in terms of population collapse by something close to 10 years. The population collapse we're about to see shortly in the West is already several years into swing in China.
As long as we have a line at the boarder of people waiting to get in we'll be fine and that doesnt look like that's going to change any time soon. Likewise for much of Europe. The only first world nations that have anything in the next couple decades to worry over in regards to this are countries like Japan who don't like to let foreigners in.
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The developed world produces an excess of food. The problem is that they feed most of it to animals which waste 90% of it. The developing world could produce enough food to feed itself if the land wasn't appropriated by the developed world to feed their animals.
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You appear to be wildly misunderstanding of what goes into food production, how much excess there is, and where it goes.
Most of the excess food production in the US goes to 3rd world countries as a means of destabilizing their economies and keeping them dependent.
Most of that food is low-quality grains which do not, in many cases, meet the necessary criteria for feedstock.
No, 90% of the food fed to animals is wasted. It goes into producing meat. There are efficiencies there, and meat producers are very cost
We have just folded space from Ix... (Score:2)
Many machines on Ix.
New machines.
Better than those on Richese...
Lie flat/let it rot (Score:2)
Must be a component in the equation as well.