Technological advancements have created concerns about job losses to automation, especially as machines become capable of doing things they could never do before. Based on a report released by the McKinsey Global Institute, 49 percent of job activities can be fully automated today, which equates to 1.1 billion workers.
A less-discussed side of automation is its ability to create jobs. In fact, it does happen, as one of the world’s largest retailers can attest.
With more robots in its fulfillment centers, Amazon has been able to lower shipping costs and pass those savings onto its customers. More people used Amazon because of cheaper shipping, and the company hired more workers to meet the increased demand.
The division of labor
How do robots and humans differ?
In order to handle tasks that require fine motor skills, judgment, or unpredictability, people are needed. Warehouse shelves are stocked with items that come off delivery trucks. Instead of grouping items by type, employees are instructed to stack them according to how they fit on the shelf rather than by how they fit on the shelf.
Performing regular and predictable tasks is the only way robots can operate in a controlled environment. In a warehouse, they have largely taken over heavy lifting, including moving pallets between shelves, which is good for warehouse workers’ backs.
Currently, building robots to stock shelves based on available space is more costly and less logical than hiring people to do so.
For incoming orders, robots lift and transport them, but do not select or pack them. A robot brings a shelf of goods to an employee’s workstation, where the employee selects the correct item and places it on a conveyor belt for another employee to package. Currently, the shelf-carrying robot is returning the first shelf and retrieving another.
People also take care of this, since loading trucks also requires spatial judgment and can be unpredictable-space must be maximized even more so than on shelves.
There will be more humans, for now, as more robots are developed
Since Amazon acquired Boston-based robotics company Kiva Systems in March 2012-at a cost of $775 million-it has ramped up its use of robots and is investing in automation research for both robots and drones.
30,000 robots were employed by the company in 2016; 45,000 were employed in 2017. Over the same period, Amazon increased its human employment by around 50 percent, rather than laying off 15,000 people.
Additionally, over the next 18 months, the company plans to create more than 100,000 new full-time, full-benefit jobs in the US. Various levels of experience, education, and skill will be required for the new jobs across the country.
How tightly are robots linked to increased productivity? The robots could be replaced by people, so would there be more jobs?
You can imagine an employee walking (or even running) through a huge warehouse, finding the right shelf, climbing a ladder to find the item he is seeking, grabbing it, climbing back down the ladder (carefully, of course), and walking back to his work station to package it. Multiply the time it took to ship the packages from Amazon’s warehouses by hundreds of thousands each day.
It takes a lot more time. The speed is much slower. The number of packages shipped has decreased. Increasing costs. Earnings are lower. There has been no growth.
The robot-to-human balance at Amazon is clearly in favor of employees right now, even though it may not last forever. There are times when automation can take away jobs, but it can also create them.