Items Tagged with 'manufacturing labor costs'

DONGGUAN, China—Shenzhen Everwin Precision Technology Co., a manufacturer of connectors and other electronics components, is building a new factory here that will use only robots for production. The factory will initially be equipped with 1,000 robots, with the aim of reducing the current workforce of 1,800 to about 200.

The U.S. manufacturing workforce is among the most productive in the world. U.S. manufacturing productivity (measured as output per hour) increased 2.5 percent in 2014, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

TAIPEI, Taiwan—Electronics manufacturer Foxconn hopes to automate 70 percent of assembly tasks within three years, according to Terry Gou, the company’s chairman.

SHANGHAI—Construction equipment manufacturer Sany Heavy Industry plans to aggressively expand the use of robotics at its assembly plant here.

GUANGZHOU, China—Robots are playing a greater role in Chinese industry as manufacturers there feel the pressure of a severe worker shortage and soaring labor costs.

BEIJING—Zhejiang province is to invest $82 billion over the next five years to encourage manufacturers to adopt more robots to overcome the short supply and high cost of labor.

WASHINGTON—U.S. worker productivity shrank in the final three months of 2012, although the decline was caused by temporary factors. Productivity contracted at an annual rate of 2 percent in the October-December quarter, the biggest drop since the first quarter of 2011.