Japan Scared of Robots Snatching Away Jobs
Millions upon millions of cans are washed, filled with beer, capped, and wrapped into 6-packs. They are then packed at shocking rate of 1,500 per minute. This all is done on buzzing conveyor belts that wind and zip in a rambling factory in Tokyo.
Not a single soul is in picture in this flawless image of automation in Japan. The machinery does all the grave lifting at this facility operated by top brewer in Japan, Asahi Breweries. The human job is to ensure that the tools do the work correctly and to watch over the quality the sensors.
“Fundamentally, nothing goes off beam. The machines are up and operating 96%,” claimed a manager at the factory, Shinichi Uno. “Even though machinery makes stuffs, human beings watch over the machinery.”
The argument over machines seizing jobs from individuals has turned voiceless in Japan. Japan is a place where birth rates have been going south for decades. This has raised fears of a shortage for labor. It might be difficult to discover a culture that commemorates robots more. These robots are more evidently sold by well-known Internet companies including Toyota Motor Corp. and SoftBank.
Japan forged a huge push to robotics beginning in the late 1990s. It now leads the world by providing 1,562 robots for every 10,000 employees in the automobile sector. This is more than as compared with 1,133 in Germany and 1,091 in the U.S., as per a White House study given to Congress in 2016. Japan was also leading in segments outside vehicles by giving 219 robots for every 10,000 employees, which his more as compared with 147 for Germany and 76 for the U.S.
One factor in diverse take on automation of Japan is the “life long employment” network. Huge companies in Japan normally keep hold of workers, even if their capabilities turn out to be out-of-date, and re-skill them for other jobs, claimed a senior spokesperson at the Research Institute of Trade, Economy and Industry, Koichi Iwamoto, to the media.
That system is beginning to battle as Japan globalizes, but it is still hugely in use, Iwamoto added further to his statement. Even though information from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development display that digitalization lowers demand for mid-level custom jobs driving demand for high- and low-skilled jobs. That trend has been less prominent in Japan as compared to that in the U.S.
