Faced with an getting older inhabitants and labor shortages, Japanese companies are more and more counting on service robots to complement their workforce, based on Bloomberg.
Research agency Fuji Keizai tasks the nation’s service robotic market to almost triple by 2030, to ¥400 billion ($2.7 billion). Potentially driving that development: The Recruit Works Institute tasks that the nation will face a labor shortfall of 11 million by 2040, whereas a government-backed institute estimates that almost 40% of the inhabitants can be 65 or older by 2065.
To illustrate how robots are filling the hole, Bloomberg factors to the nation’s largest desk service restaurant chain, Skylark, which makes use of round 3,000 cat-eared robots to convey meals to tables. At one the chain’s Tokyo eating places, 71-year-old Yasuko Tagawa estimated that half her job now entails some type of robotic help.
At one level, Tagawa advised a robotic, “Thanks to your arduous work. I’ll be relying on you.”
