As companies continue to feel the pressure of labor shortages, some are turning to automation to solve their staffing problems, Bloomberg reported Nov. 6.
A survey from the Federal Reserve showed that one-third of CFOs at organizations that are struggling to hire are implementing or considering implementing automation to replace workers. The trend toward automation has been a long time in the making, with 3 million robots populating the world's factories now.
Spending on professional robots increased by 12 percent in 2020. According to the International Federation of Robotics, medical robots accounted for 55 percent of total service robot turnover in 2020, driven mostly by robotic surgery devices. Since 2019, the turnover increased 11 percent to $3.6 billion.
Labor unions have been fighting automation, and economists have testified that automation could prove to widen inequality gaps.
"If it continues, labor demand will grow slowly, inequality will increase, and the prospects for many low-education workers will not be very good," Daron Acemoglu, PhD, a professor at Cambridge-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Bloomberg.