Say goodbye to manufacturing jobs worldwide, "outsourcing" to robots continues..

[johnny861]

Rise of Robots Picks Up Steam
Latest UN report shows labor costs fueling increase in robot workers

Robot sales are continuing to rise rapidly, says a UN report, driven partly by increased labor costs and the growth of service robots.

According to World Robotics 2004, an annual survey produced by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), orders for industrial robots rose a record 18% in the first half of this year to the highest level ever recorded.

This came after worldwide investment in industrial robots rose 19% in 2003, and after last year's robotics report showed that robot orders in the first half of 2003 were up by 26% from the previous year to the highest level then recorded.

"Falling or stable robot prices, increasing labor costs and continuously improved technology are major driving forces which speak for continued massive robot investment in industry," says Jan Karlsson, lead author of the survey.

A robot in every home

Growth in industrial robots has been accompanied by growth in new service robots—including medical robots, underwater robots, surveillance robots and demolition robots. By the end of 2003, notes the report, about 610,000 autonomous vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers were in operation. Between 2004 and 2007, it says, more than four million new units could be added.

The report notes a big driver of increased robot sales: A drop in the price of robots compared to human labor. The price of robots in proportion to human labor costs fell from 100 in 1990 to 15 in German and 12 in North America—and for far better robots than existed 14 years ago.

Japan currently uses about 320 robots per 10,000 employees, while Germany uses 148, Italy 116, Sweden 99 and between 50 and 80 each in the US, Finland, France, Spain, Austria, Denmark and Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In the Japanese, Italian and German car industries, there is one robot per 10 workers.

The report was presented in Geneva at a UN conference called "A Robot in Every Home?"

[Satchel]

Al Gore can finally find work!