What Impact Do Robots Have on Jobs?

Kathy Belcher, STEM and MFG Curriculum Specialist

Meet Cody, a service robot
from the Center for
Healthcare Robotics
at Georgia Institute
of Technology

When the first industrial robot, the Ternstedt die-caster, joined an assembly line at a General Motors plant in 1961, the possibility of American worker’s jobs being replaced by robots became a reality.

The report Positive Impact of Industrial Robots on Employment based on a study conducted for the International Federation of Robotics, shows new job creation from the use of robots (2011). The study looks at employment in six countries (Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Republic of Korea, and USA) and concludes that one million industrial robots in use in the world have been directly responsible for the creation of nearly three million jobs and indirectly for up to five million more.

“The report highlights that between 2000-2008 manufacturing employment increased in nearly every major industrialized country, even as the use of robotics increased sharply”, as summarized by the International Federation of Robotics. The potential for new job creation by the use of robots between now and 2016 is estimated to be one million in five major categories: 

 

1. Continued development of new products based on electronics and communication technology - service robots and renewable energy technologies 
2. Expansion of existing industries such as automotive 
3. Greater use of robots by companies that have 20-249 employees 
4. Greater use of robots in the food industry  
5. Expansion of the robotics sector itself

Recently featured in professional and business website articles, robots are having a positive impact on job creation in the United States in the following ways: 

• The robot industry expands as people build robots and market, sell, and provide technical support. New job creation involves designing, programming, integrating, installing, servicing, maintaining, managing, and refining the machines. (www.spectrum.ieee.org)  
• Skilled robotics operators replace the blue collar jobs when robotic automation is introduced into a company. This created nearly 14,000 jobs between 2020 and2012. (www.kukaconnect.com) 
• “Reshoring” brings jobs back to America as rising wages in the developing world and higher energy costs have made it more efficient to make and sell products in the US. (Time Business)  
• Service applications for robots are growing faster in the United States than elsewhere. And the United States has about 60% of the robotics service industry. (Today’s Engineer)  
• Defense has grown in the past two years as we have deployed 10,000 robotic vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the United States has about 80% of the robotics military industry. (Today’s Engineer) 
• The demand for robotic engineers is projected to grow by as much as nine percent through 2018. (US Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Robots are becoming inexpensive enough to help bring jobs back to the United States. For example, a robot called Baxter is inexpensive enough to do the rote tasks workers in other countries were doing, thus freeing up US workers to do more complicated jobs (TIME Business). Robots are doing jobs that would be unsafe for humans, such as in dangerous mining and factory settings. Robots are going places where humans cannot go. Through the use of the da Vinci® Surgical System, robots assist surgeons with minimally invasive surgery, resulting in less pain and shorter hospital stays (Intuitive Surgical, Inc.).

The top seven projected new jobs, the two fastest growing occupations, and eight of the highest paying occupations (2010) are in service and healthcare (US Bureau of Labor and Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012). This suggests that the use of service robots will be a positive impact in the workplace and not a threat to American workers’ jobs, just as the use of industrial robots was found to be a Positive Impact of Industrial Robots on Employment.
 

References

Dietsch, J. (2010). Do Robots Take People’s Jobs? Retrieved from http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/051110-do-robots-take-peoples-jobs

Eaton, K. (2010). Meet Cody: Your Future Non-Terrifying Health-Care Helper Robot. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/1587924/meet-cody-your-future-non-terrifying-health-care-helper-robot

Gorle, P., & Clive, A. (2011). Positive Impact of Industrial Robots on Employment. Retrieved from http://www.ifr.org/robots-create-jobs/

Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (2012) Surgery Enabled by da Vinci® . Retrieved from http://www.davincisurgery.com/davinci-surgery/?id=ycc

Kuka Connect (2012). Robots & Automation Bring Jobs Back to the U.S. Retrieved from http://www.kukaconnect.com/reshoring-robots-bring-jobs-us/

Matthews, C. (2012, September 27). Can robots bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.? Time Business & Money. Retrieved from http://business.time.com/2012/09/27/can-robots-bring-back-manufacturing-jobs-to-the-u-s/

Platt, J. (2012). The Real Steel: Robotics Careers Ready to Boom. Retrieved from http://www.todaysengineer.org/2012/Feb/career-focus.asp

US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012, March 29). Most New Jobs. Retrieved from http://bls.gov/ooh/most-new-jobs.htm

US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012, March 29). Fastest Growing Occupations. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest-growing.htm

US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012, March 29). Highest Paying Occupations. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/ooh/highest-paying.htm