Unions are on rise, so are robots

US manufacturers hired 60,000 people in October, double economists’ estimates and the most since June of last year. It was a robust showing, led by automakers. But payrolls in the sector are still down by almost 300,000 since the end of 2019, even as many large industrial companies are reporting sales above pre-pandemic levels.
Last month’s recruitment success will only make a modest dent in the nearly 900,000 open manufacturing positions as of the end of August. The tight labour market has created a moment for unions: Deere & Co workers this week felt so confident in their value to the company that they voted down a revised contract proposal that included substantial wage increases and enhanced retirement benefits. It’s also creating a moment for robots.
There were a record 310,700 industrial robots operating in the US last year, up 6% from 2019,
according to a report from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) released late last week. New robot installations actually declined in the US last year as the financial strains of the pandemic weighed on corporate spending, but manufacturing headcount also fell, boosting the ratio of robots to humans. There were 255 industrial robots operating for every 10,000 manufacturing employees last year, compared with 229 in 2019, IFR data show. That growth boosted the US two spots on IFR’s country-by-country comparison of robot density, and the country now sits in seventh place globally. But the real growth is just getting started. The IFR projects that North American robot installations will grow 17% in 2021 and that a “post-crisis boom” will continue to fuel low double-digit growth rates in 2022 and beyond.

—Bloomberg