It turns out that while we're outsourcing electronic manufacturing jobs to Chinese companies, they are turning around and replacing their own employees with robots. Perhaps we should "insource" those jobs back around by replacing the Chinese robots with our domestic ones here. http://singularityhub.com/2012/11/1...an-jobs-at-foxconn-first-robots-have-arrived/
Automation is huge with manufacturing companies, because of how expensive labor really is (even without unions). President Zero is helping to accelerate the trend.
There is some merit to what you say. I watched a program the other day that said chinese labour costs were rising. I think that soon the US will become more competitative with China as the living standards rise in the East. This will bring a shift back to domestic manufacturing.
Some believe by 2040 robots will produce everything... There is even a name given to the law that predicts that.. That guy Mish from that blog is a big believer.... Either way it is clear lower pay jobs will come under pressure more and more by automatisation. Useless to debate if it is good or bad as it will happen anyway.
well, just think about it. At first I hated those self serve checkout lines, where you scanned your own purchases and put them in the bag yourself. Mainly because I am a very lonely man, and my only human contact was the pretty cashier. Now I have gotten to the point where I just quit buying stuff on my shopping trip so I can just scan it myself and not have to deal with anybody. Is that good for business?
(Mental image of a scene of the film I-robot ). Seriously doudt the validity of the article , machines require skilled labor to fix them . Has China developed a big work -force of skilled workers ?? Hopefully chinese wages will rise , if they dont the future is gloom. PS on a slightly relevant subject 90 millions low skilled jobs will dissapear by 2020 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...ckinsey-global-institute-study_n_1609767.html
Are you kidding me? There are plenty of developing countries with cheap labor costs where manufacturing will go to before the US. We have been seeing companies shift manufacturing from China to lower cost countries like Vietnam for the past several years. There will always be some niche manufacturing roles in America but it will never return to being a major base for manufacturing in general.
Our very own forum has information about this transformation... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=252094 An Inc. magazine article (linked to in the link above) talks about a manufacturing company in Connecticut using a new $22,000 robot to work 3 shifts...a game changer...