Chinese Manufacturers Are Scrambling To Replace Workers With Robots As Wages Soar

Tepid wage growth has been frustrating Americans for years. But if trends in China’s manufacturing sector have any bearing on the US, there’s an upside to stagnant pay: Workers get to keep their jobs – for now, at least.

In China – where real wages have doubled in the past decade – the opposite is true: Manufacturers, squeezed by rising labor costs and a paucity of skilled workers, are fueling an unprecedented boon in the adoption of automated technologies to cut down on the number of workers needed on factory floors, according to the latest findings of the China Employer-Employee Survey.

Ironically, the Communist Party’s willingness to support unprofitable businesses is compounding problems for Chinese workers, as many manufacturers are barely profitable to begin with.

As Bloomberg explains, China is no longer the cheap labor haven it once was.

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