Fearing that it will see an exodus of manufacturers, China last year called for “an industrial robot revolution,” and the country has become the world’s largest market for automation. It is an open question whether automation can hold down costs as effectively as Chinese peasant labor did. But consumers should look forward to more choice, faster delivery and, perhaps, less harm to the environment. Some technologists even think that inventions such as 3-D printing will have a big impact by 2050. In such a world, printers could spew out clothing, food, electronics and other goods ordered online from a nearly limitless selection, with far fewer workers involved in production. The end of very cheap labor in China is giving a push to these advances in technology, which will make China less central to global manufacturing.
China’s rise to the world’s No. 2 economy relied on a huge increase in the country’s working-age population, which expanded by 380 million people between 1980 and 2015. In one of history’s greatest migrations, hundreds of millions of rural Chinese headed for cities for manufacturing jobs that were a step up from peasant labor, even though the work paid poorly by global standards.
Classroom discussion questions:
- Will more and more companies be leaving China to chase cheaper labor?
- Why is automation so important to China? To the U.S.?