The automation wave is expected to dramatically reshape the US economy in the 2020s. This disruption will impact the labor force and cause tremendous job losses. By 2030, automation could eliminate 20% to 25% of current jobs — equivalent to 40 million displaced workers, hitting the bottom 90% of Americans the hardest.
A new report from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) shows how warehouse automation is starting to gain traction in Atlanta, the sixth largest warehousing space in the US.
The new, robot-powered warehouse in McDonough, Georgia, is currently undergoing pilot tests and will begin operations in June. Project Verte, a start-up trying to compete with Amazon, is responsible for automating the warehouse.
The Butler system, an advanced autonomous fleet of mobile robots, uses robotic goods-to-person technology for automated put-away, inventory storage, replenishment, and order picking.
AJC said the Bulter robots are like “giant Roombas” that move between 6,000 refrigerator-size shelving units lined up in rows 85 deep within the warehouse. An employee summons the robot with a handheld device, it then uses a jack to lift the shelving unit and transports it to the human picker, who then grabs items out of the bins, scans it and hands it off to the packaging department.
While there are no other fully automated warehouses in Georgia, the closest one is in Jacksonville, Florida, which uses similar Roomba-like robots.
In the next 10.5 years, automation is set to eliminate millions of jobs in the warehouse and logistics space, as well as increase the demand for small to medium-sized automated warehouses.
“I think there’s definitely going to be fewer workers in warehouses, but warehouses are also experiencing labor shortages,” said Nancey Green Leigh, a Georgia Tech professor who studies robots and works with a National Science Foundation grant.
According to AJC, Atlanta has 683 million square feet of warehouse space, making it the sixth-most largest in the country.
Once fully operational, the McDonough warehouse will be able to ship 200,000 items per day, aided by a fleet of robots and 400 human pickers, packers, supervisors and technicians.
Tye Brady, the chief technologist for Amazon, said rising demand for new technologies [automated warehouses] would lead to job losses.
Before the Butler system, human pickers could walk up to 12 miles a day shifting items around the warehouse, said Leigh.
The collision of automation on the labor force will lead to severe economic dislocation that could depress wages and lead to an even wider gap in wealth inequality that would have significant economic and social ramifications. Nevertheless, millions of Americans will lose their jobs.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Yet our borders are wide open allowing millions of low IQ workers into the country. What exactly are they going to do to be productive?
If that’s fake, you’re a dick.
If you can prove that’s it’s fake I’ll admit I’m a dick. If you can’t then you admit you’re a dick. Hows that?
What you do is connect the robot to the MRP (materials resource planning system – which includes sales orders) and send it the line items in a sales order). The robot can use RFID to have the label printed – all automated. However this system is only good for light items.
Not just mechanical automation. What about what software will do to the workforce?
Q: why haven’t loan officers of every type been replaced yet? Or Realtors etc?
Well loan officers have almost been replaced – look a Quicken Loans or Rocket Mortgage – all automated.
Most Realty companies have web sites, with many professional pictures of every listing – very easy to see if you want to visit potential properties. Selling and buying homes / real property takes some management skills. Realtors handle all the paper work and make sure the financial deal and the closing goes through as planned. I don’t think that could be automated.
Dutch,
It’s just paperwork. Paperwork is simply data and data entry.
Realtors haven’t been replaced yet because their real job is to convince buyers to pay more, and sellers to take less, and to get everyone involved enough warm and fuzzy feelings to get the deal to cross and their cut to be paid. The warm and fuzzy feelings is the part that is hardest to automate.
Hey, no problem we can all become house flippers or realtors! (sarc)
Anon- what is your point? You want companies to stop becoming more productive?
Business exists to make money. To do that they need to compete and get continuously better. They have zero obligation to create or maintain jobs. What you do is up to you. People need to stop thinking about having jobs and instead think about making money. They are two different things.
As far as employment vs. making $$, I couldn’t agree more. Still won’t be enough to change the issue though. IMO
Goodbye Middle Class: The Percentage Of Wealth Owned By The Top 10% Just Got Even BIGGER
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/goodbye-middle-class-the-percentage-of-wealth-owned-by-the-top-10-just-got-even-bigger
Dylan – if you translate income to IQ – nota pefect translation, but reasonably predicative – you get an IQ band for the middle class of 85 to 115.
And half the middle class is in the range of 85-100. Now just what on earth can those folks add in an advanced high tech economy? Do you really think they have any chance of maintaining a high wage? The high wages they used to have were tied to manufacturing, which no longer employs many people.
And you want to somehow blame it on the rich?
Conversely, the high income folks, with IQs of 115+, are very well suited to a high tech economy. And are doing well.
Shit happens. Manufacturing is never going to provide work to the modestly qualified. The US middle class as it was is never coming back, as it was but a blip in the timeline of world economics.
Agreed as regards the middle class and it’s ultimate denouement. If more and more people are automated out of jobs then who buys the products that are warehoused and moved via automation and, carrying it one step further, who buys the manufactured via automation goods? Henry Ford offered a ‘living’ wage and priced his vehicles such that the workers could afford them. Now manufacturing (for a number of reasons) makes many items that people can no longer afford. What does this signal for a consumer society?
Making money isn’t easy for those lower IQ folk, they can resort to selling drugs but do they have the capacity to create something that generates money? Doesn’t seem like it…without a customer base business doesn’t exist.
Mygirl – The Henry Ford stuff is an old wive’s tale. Been retold so many times it is now seen as fact. But it is not the reality of what happened. Here is the real story.
https://www.willricciardella.com/myth-henry-ford-paid-workers-can-afford-product-make/
Good comment.
Don’t know where the previous link went, but here is another:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/04/the-story-of-henry-fords-5-a-day-wages-its-not-what-you-think/
Thanks for the clarification. I don’t know if it’s just me but whenever someone posts a website the image from the website superimposes over the text of the comment so I can’t read the remainder of your comment or the comment below it. I can’t figure out how to get rid of the superimposed image. Any help?
When that happens to me I refresh the page. That usually fixes it.
Not just you……and besides covering the text, the picture(s) usually don’t add anything ….. they just take up space.
False is the assumption that everyone middle class and poor are of lower IQ than everyone who is rich, but I’m sure you’ll scour the internet that presents a narrative that agrees with you that is paid for by the rich. If IQ is tied to wealth then what explains Donald Trumps wealth?
Furthermore the following meme is a classic example of your fallacy narrative.
Dylan,
It’s not popular to say this around here but, that’s why I’m an advocate for a high inheritance tax. If the goal is widespread prosperity, $$ needs to circulate big time. Otherwise it’s hoarding and rent seeking imo.
Yeh. Recirculate into the pockets of Congress and lobbyists. It will never make to the place you suggest. Into the middle and lower class pockets. Taxes are bullshit!
Dylan – not everyone. But IQ correlates very heavily with income. You think many folks with sub-100 IQs are rich? Check out the IQs if self-made billionaires for an eye-opener – no 100 or under IQs there.
To suggest that income/wealth does not correlate closely with IQ is ridiculous. IQs are poor predictors for individuals, but for groups it is very accurate. And people in the middle hand of IQ are going to be much less wealthy than those in the top 20% – looking at the group. And the middle income band has a lower average IQ than the top band.
The single greatest advantage ANYONE can have is to be smart. And you would dispute this?
You must be a moron.
Here is a little snippet on the subject:
Why the IQ-wealth link? What does IQ mean?
Why is the level of the most intelligent people important for economic productivity? Rindermann offers the following explanation:
IQ is relevant for technological progress, for innovation, for leading a nation, for leading organizations, as entrepreneurs, and so on.
To quote from the article’s abstract:
this group’s cognitive ability predicts the quality of economic and political institutions, which further determines the economic affluence of the nation.
According to Rindermann, cognitive capital is the major determiner of economic productivity – more important than economic freedom itself.
I think in the modern economy, human capital and cognitive ability are more important than economic freedom.“
The gist: the economic success of a nation is tied to its smartest people. They in turn get paid well. Others – they get drug along by the smart folks.
Same as it ever was.