Topic updates
Robots transform the logistics industry
10th January 2018
This is a compelling, superb video report from the FT on how robotic technologies are having a transformative impact on the fast-growing logistics industry.
The army of over 2,000 robots in one of Amazon's fulfilment warehouses in the UK is featured as is a slightly different, but still hugely impressed robotic system used by Ocado to pick online grocery deliveries.
Lots of issues raised in the video, not the least being the ongoing argument about the impact of greater automation on productivity and the quantity and quality of jobs available to the labour force.
Despite the growing army of robots used at Amazon, their workforce has continued to expand rapidly. Capital can replace labour but in aggregate, automation might actually create more new jobs than it destroys.
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.
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