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Labor being cheap is more of a locale dependent condition in China now, their well developed cities and industries have had rising wages for 2+ decades now and
by AngryData 1mo ago
Labor being cheap is more of a locale dependent condition in China now, their well developed cities and industries have had rising wages for 2+ decades now and the labor discount is small enough to be more like a side-benefit to already manufacturing in China, rather than a driving force to outsource to China. China has itself started outsourcing certain productions to chase cheaper labor prices.
- yorwba 1mo agoThat labor costs are rising and are now significantly above poorer countries like Bangladesh or Myanmar doesn't mean they're anywhere near high-income countries or above the cost of automation for low-volume tasks like last-mile delivery, which drivers do for under a dollar per trip: https://archive.ph/SizjZ https://archive.ph/SizjZ Automation can make sense even with low labor costs if it enables higher volume. Like nobody is paying humans to chisel individual screws by hand, because machines can do it quicker and better, and therefore cheaper. But you can't substantially increase the volume of last-mile delivery by replacing the human with a robot, because the robot would have to move faster, and moving faster would be dangerous. So robotic automation of low-volume tasks can be expected to happen in high-income countries first.