Foxconn Proposes Robot Invasion

Foxconn, contract manufacturers based out of China, have announced a labor increase to 1 million robots by 2014.

The manufacturing company that employs 1.2 million has been struggling with the cost of labor and is turning to machinery. Though their robots are not programmed to take over the world, they have been programmed to take over basic assembly duties.

Though only 10,000 robots are currently being used inside the Chinese warehouse, they will increase to 300,000 by next year, another million by 2014.

Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou told staff at its campus in Longhua, China, that he planned to promote its more than 1 million employees up the value chain beyond basic manufacturing work, leaving the grunt work for the robots, according to a statement released by the manufacturer. A good thing since the company has been plagued by young workers’ suicides in its Chinese factory since last year.

“Rising salary costs should be the key reason why Foxconn is doing this. This year’s wage increase has been quite significant and I don’t expect the pace to slow down next year,” said C.K. Lu, a Taipei-based senior analyst at research firm Gartner, Reuters reported. “If they don’t do this, they will have to move their factories elsewhere.”

But they don’t want to move. A move to someplace with lower labor costs separates them from the supply chain.

In a time when jobs are becoming harder to find and apocalyptic theories are running rampant, Foxconn has given new fuel to many fires. So now we can sit back and hope that these newly recruited robots don’t get pissed that they’re at the bottom of the labor chain and rise up against us. Lets cross our fingers.

More Faster News:

3,700 Post Offices Set to Close

Google+ Freezing and Deleting Accounts

New Law Targets Distracted, Texting Drivers

Comments