China's New Labor Force: Robots

China's largest individual employer, other than the People's Liberation Army has unveiled a new plan to replace huge amounts of human labor with robots. The plan will take action over the next few years and be at a general completion around 2013. The company which I am referring to is Foxconn, a company initially hailed for its ability to hire mass amounts of workers and produce electronics for some of the worlds largest clients, including Apple Inc. Recently the company has been plagued by worker suicides, in which the latest was a 21-year old who threw himself off a building in July. Additionally a major explosion happened at a new factory in Chengdu which killed three more employees. (Click here for more info on Foxconn)


Foxconn has responded to their more than 1 million workers by raising wages, improving conditions at their facilities, providing counseling, and installing nets to catch those jumping out of windows. Of course these have raised costs at the factories and for a company that prides itself on producing components for the worlds leading tech companies at the lowest possible cost, they are looking for alternatives. That is where robots will come in.

Foxconn's CEO Terry Gou said that the more than 1 million workers will be moved “higher up the value chain beyond basic manufacturing work” and of its “desire to move workers from more routine tasks to more value-added positions in manufacturing such as research and development, innovation and other areas that are equally important to the success of our operations.” 


To me, this presents a brave new world for China. Of course this is not the first time robots are being used in the factory process, but when a company as massive as Foxconn decides to transfer human worker hours into machines, jobs will inevitably be lost. China becoming more an more like a capitalist nation under communist rule, needs consumers to grow. If work has already been strained as well as a major division between the rural and urban lifestyles, how will China look like if their massive population cannot find work? China's heart is manufacturing in this modern economy, if manufacturing money comes in from foreign nations, but only sits in the hands of the company/government, what will this mean for the people of China? 


For more information about Foxconn's move into robotic labor, follow this link to The Economist.