Chatted with a retired factory guy at the diner who said his plant ran fine with 200 people and now runs with 20 and 6 robots.

He told me those 180 lost workers didn't just find new jobs, they mostly ended up in lower paying service gigs or left the workforce entirely, so where's the line between efficiency and just wrecking communities?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair_nguyen17d ago

But didn't anyone at the company try to retrain some of those 200 people to run or fix the robots instead of just cutting them loose? Seems like there'd be a middle ground where some of them could have moved up instead of out.

jamieb8017d ago

The logistics center in Dallas that was mentioned is a good example of why retraining isn't always a simple fix. I remember reading about a similar situation at a Ford plant in Ohio where they tried retraining 60 assembly line workers for robotics maintenance. About 12 of them passed the technical courses, but the 48 others either struggled with the computer systems or didn't want to learn electrical work. The company ended up keeping the ones who could adapt, but the rest were let go or moved to other lower skilled jobs. So it really comes down to how much time and money a company has to invest in people who might not be able to make the jump.

drewr1517d ago

@blair_nguyen you make a Really good point and I think people don't talk about this enough. At a logistics center I knew about near Dallas, they actually tried retraining 15 warehouse workers to maintain the robotic arms. Five of them picked it up pretty quick and now they make way more than before. But the other 10 couldn't really get the hang of the programming or electrical troubleshooting. The company didn't want to just fire them so they shifted them to other manual roles in the building, but not everyone was willing to take a pay cut. So it's not always as simple as "just train them" because the skills gap can be HUGE even with effort.