With the arrival of "robot worker", what new situation will the employment market show?

May Day, holiday of laborers. At the same time, a "robot worker" is increasingly causing social concern. According to the official website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Zhejiang has taken the lead in promoting machine substitutions. In the five years from 2013, it plans to implement 5,000 machine-substitution projects each year and realize 500 billion yuan of machine substitution investment. Ling Yun, deputy director of the Economic and Information Commission of Zhejiang Province, said that the project has cumulatively reduced nearly 2 million laborers by 2015; Anhui is stepping up its “100-million-ring machine replacement project”; Guangdong, Shandong, and other places all have their own comparisons. Advantageous industries have vigorously promoted "machine substitution", and many artificial jobs have been replaced by robotic labor.

Laborious transformation, etc. boosting machine substitutions everywhere

According to industry experts, China’s current robot manufacturing technology is maturing, reforms to promote economic restructuring, high labor costs, and labor difficulties have all contributed to the advancement of robotic labor expectations. In the production workshop of Shenzhen Leibai Technology, the protagonist of the production line is not a row of workers, but a row of flexible flip mechanical arms. Through the development of the intelligent automation system, the company's direct production staff has decreased from more than 3,200 people in the peak period of more than a decade ago to more than 800 today, saving a lot of expenses every year.

According to reports, in 2005, Pyramid suffered a "labor shortage," and labor costs rose. In 2011, Raeba purchased 75 industrial robots at one go, and the labor cost dropped dramatically. “The keyboard assembly is used as an example. Now on a production line, five workers can complete the workload of the previous 100 people by managing robots,” said Liu Ciping, manager of operations and management department of the company. According to data from the Dongguan City Bureau of Economics and Information in Guangdong, from September 2014 to October 2016, a total of 1,485 special fund projects for Dongguan “machine substitution” were declared, and it is expected to reduce 87,000 workers.

In Shandong, Yanzhou Coal's subsidiary Zhangzhou Dongfang Electromechanical Co., Ltd., the stove production workshop, a small square robot carrying materials through the workshop, accurately rushed to the welding station. After they docked, the handling robot automatically grabs the material and delivers it to the next process's welding robot. Tan Guangren, director of the Technical Quality Center of Zhangzhou Dongfang Electromechanical Co., Ltd., told the reporter that at present, the company has used three ADV intelligent mobile robots, one KUKA handling robot and five welding robots in the key parts of stove production. These robots can automatically dock the finished product of the previous process, the next process slot, and can replace about 50 people's labor. The company plans to implement full automation in the production line of 100,000 stoves per year. The tasks of loading and unloading, grouping, welding, and painting will all be completed by the robots. “The number of operations will be reduced from 400 to 100.”

The robot greatly reduces the labor cost of the company. Sanlux headquartered in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, after investing in the construction of “unmanned workshops”, only labor costs saved more than 10 million yuan, accounting for about 7% of the company’s net profit for the year.

The application of robots creates more high-end employment opportunities

The reporter learned that the current scope of “machine substitution” has not been limited to industrial manufacturing, and artificial positions in some service areas have also been quietly replaced by robot workers. Yuan Hui, the founder and chairman of Xiaoyi Robots, said that in 2015 China Construction Bank used customer service robots for call centers, replacing a large number of employees that year. “There are many banks, operators, e-commerce companies and even local governments that are beginning to use them. robot."

Wang Tianmiao, dean of the Institute of Intelligent Manufacturing of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, believes that robotics technology will be widely used in industrial manufacturing, service areas, as well as smart cars, drones and so on.

Wu Lihua, director of Shandong Linyi Shentong, introduced that in order to increase efficiency and avoid violent sorting, Linyi Shentong is equipped with 320 intelligent sorting robots. It can handle 18,000 packages within 5 kg per hour, and the accuracy rate is basically 100%. The labor required for the same amount of work was reduced from 150 to 30, and the number of jobs cut was as high as 80%.

The Changzhou Phoenix Everlasting Type Fire Fighting Robot Company has launched a high-temperature fire-fighting robot named “Fire Phoenix”. Ren Qu Bo, general manager of the company introduced the robot in addition to high temperature, can also be toxic gas detection, can replace firefighters into the high-risk fire, explosion, toxic environment, perform the task of closing the valve, reduce the accident site of the second explosion probability.

Dr. Qu Daokui, chairman of the China Robot Industry Alliance, said that service robots currently have a vast market and broad prospects in China. "For example, we are doing clinical trials of smart care equipment that can perform a variety of physiological parameter tests." Qu Dao-kui stressed that "in the future, robots can do much in public services such as firefighting, rescue, guarding, and medical care."

Wang Guiqiang, a researcher at the equipment and industry division of the Economic and Information Commission of Shandong Province, believes that the rise of artificial intelligence may result in unemployment for some low-skilled workers. However, some experts believe that the application of robots will create more high-end employment opportunities. This may include: Industrial data scientists, robot coordinators, industrial engineers, simulation experts, supply chain coordination positions, system design, information technology, 3D assisted design, field service engineers, sales and service personnel needs. It is worth noting that these new jobs are highly professional.

How to actively face? Guide the workforce to divert and upgrade

Most experts believe that although robots have a certain influence on artificial jobs, there is no need to over-stress.

Wang Yamin, who works for Guangdong Changying Precision Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that although his work was once replaced by robots, she has been re-employed after two months of training. She has been promoted from a general engineer to a technician and even added. salary. Luo Weiqiang, general manager assistant of the company, said that despite vigorously advancing the "machine substitution", most of the employees can be digested within the company and re-employed after transfer training.

“Human invention of robots was first used to replace humans, then to service people, and to expand people in the future.” Academician Ding Han, Dean of the School of Mechanical Science and Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said, “At present, industrial robots are mostly in some structured environments. In the middle of work, the online sensing capability is relatively poor. Service robots can only accomplish some simple tasks at present. As for special robots, it is necessary to complete specific tasks through manual remote control."

Yang Tai, CEO of Changtai Robotics, and Wang Shuxin, Dean of the Tianjin University's Mechanical Engineering College, all believe that in the future, robots may imitate humans from operations, vision, and voice, instead of artificial, but they must only serve humans more.

Professor Cai Xiuling of the Economics College of Fujian Normal University believes that in the next few years, China's service industry will create a large number of new jobs. Most of these positions can be qualified through short-term training, which can effectively relieve the short-term “unemployed” pressure caused by “machine substitution”. She suggested that the government and society should pool resources, increase investment in vocational training and "double-creation" support, and guide the workforce to achieve diversions and upgrades.

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In March 2015, Guangdong held the mobilization meeting for the industrial transformation and upgrading of the entire province. It issued the “Three-year Plan of Action for the Industrial Transformation and Upgrading of Guangdong Province (2015-2017)” and proposed that the total industrial investment in Guangdong's industrial technology reform will reach 943 billion yuan in three years. And promoted 1950 industrial enterprises above designated size to carry out "machine substitution".

In Guangzhou, the government proposed that by 2020 more than 80% of manufacturing companies in the city use industrial robots and smart equipment. In Foshan, government subsidies support robotics companies. At present, there are more than 300 intelligent equipment manufacturing enterprises in the city, and a group of well-known enterprises in the field of robots, such as Lixun, Jiateng and Yixue, have emerged. In Dongguan, the government last year promoted 50 robotic intelligence projects on its No. 1 Wen-wen initiative to promote the implementation of “machine-for-machine” automation projects.