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from the employees-will-now-lead-lives-of-leisure dept.
Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer of Apple's iPhones and other electronic devices, aims to replace human workers with "FoxBots" and achieve nearly full automation of entire factories:
The slow and steady march of manufacturing automation has been in place at Foxconn for years. The company said last year that it had set a benchmark of 30 percent automation at its Chinese factories by 2020. The company can now produce around 10,000 Foxbots a year, Jia-peng says, all of which can be used to replace human labor. In March, Foxconn said it had automated away 60,000 jobs at one of its factories.
[...] Complicating the matter is the Chinese government, which has incentivized human employment in the country. In areas like Chengdu, Shenzhen, and Zhengzhou, local governments have doled out billions of dollars in bonuses, energy contracts, and public infrastructure to Foxconn to allow the company to expand. As of last year, Foxconn employed as many as 1.2 million people, making it one of the largest employers in the world. More than 1 million of those workers reside in China, often at elaborate, city-like campuses that house and feed employees.
In an in-depth report published yesterday, The New York Times detailed these government incentivizes for Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory, its largest and most capable plant that produces 500,000 iPhones a day and is known locally as "iPhone City." According to Foxconn's Jia-peng, the Zhengzhou factory has some production lines already at the second automation phase and on track to become fully automated in a few years' time. So it may not be long before one of China's largest employers will be forced to grapple with its automation ambitions and the benefits it receives to transform rural parts of the country into industrial powerhouses.
To undermine American manufacturing, ditch the meatbags.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:49AM
They're lucky they can pay people $8.25/hr as those jobs can be automated too. McDonald's has already demonstrated that they are prepared to fight fair wage increases with automation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:56AM
Full service gas stations weren't even automated away. The business just forces the customer to work for free and calls it self service instead.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:14AM
I saw this kind of thing in Cuba back in the late 70s. They had engineers and architects cutting sugarcane because they had no jobs for them. If a young doctor or engineer can’t get a job even flipping burgers, how are they going to make a living?
Years ago a good education, I mean a degree in something or other, was a sure-fire way to get a decent job making enough money to support a family. Nowadays, just to get in the door you need a diploma and that’s for an entry level position. Does it make sense to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a college degree when it doesn’t buy you a decent job?
Jokingly, I think, someone else posted about VR and entertainers, but think about CGI and special effects and all of a sudden your favorite actor is simply created on demand by software. Think of a future when all the famous actors and actresses are no longer millionaires, because they are virtual while some large corporation pockets all those millions they now have to pay to DiCaprio, Cruise or Johansson. If they don’t have a chance, what can we lowly serfs expect?