Labor Shortage

Factories and similar employers can't find or keep enough workers, often cited as the core case for robots.

A labor shortage means significantly more workers are wanted for a job than are willing to take it, and it's common on manufacturing lines and in logistics and caregiving — physically demanding, repetitive work. Causes include an aging population, a shrinking working-age population, and younger workers avoiding factory jobs; China, Japan, South Korea, and Western countries all face versions of this problem. It's the demand argument most often cited in robotics fundraising pitches and government policy documents: as workers become scarcer and more expensive, the payback period for replacing them with robots gets shorter. When reading coverage of this topic, it helps to distinguish a long-term structural shortage from a temporary hiring crunch in one industry, and to trace any headline shortage numbers back to their original source.

ExampleManufacturers cite hiring difficulty and high worker turnover as reasons for bringing in collaborative robots or humanoid robots to handle loading and material transport.

Also called

Labor Shortage (Aging Workforce), Worker Shortage, Hiring Difficulty

Related

Machines Replacing Humans · Dirty, Dull, and Dangerous (3D) Jobs · Return on Investment / Payback Period · Lights-Out Factory · Robot Density

Sources

Population ageing - Wikipedia
International Federation of Robotics