Robot arms replace factory hands

[Judi Lynn]

Robot arms replace factory hands
15 JAN 2017

Donald Trump has been crowing as companies including Ford renounce plans to move factories to Mexico. But the main beneficiaries of this shift back to the US aren't saying much by way of celebration -- industrial robots don't tend to speak.

While globalisation's detractors blame countries such as China and Mexico for stealing the factory jobs of the West, experts point to less obvious culprits which are harder to scapegoat and to overcome in an interconnected economy with complex supply chains.

Since US manufacturing employment peaked in the late 1970s, according to Michael Hicks of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana, "95 percent of job losses were due to productivity improvements including automation and computer technology, rather than trade".

Indiana is one of the rust-belt states where Trump triumphed in November, and the president-elect has promised a punitive border tax against outsourcing companies as he bids to become "the greatest jobs producer that God ever created".

More:
https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/robot-arms-replace-factory-hands

[Thor_MN]

1. I believe Trump has set his benchmark at 93 million jobs.

Anything less would abject failure. Kind of large, considering that he got less than 63 million votes, but he claimed there were 93 million adults "out of work" and he was going to be the best job creator ever. So when he fails to put every person who is retired, disabled, a student or stay at home parent to work, we need to remind him that he is a failure by his own metrics.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/31/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-us-has-93-milion-people-out-work/