US automotive industry installs 17 500 industrial robots in 2016
June 2017
News
The US automotive industry installed approximately 17 500 industrial robots in 2016, according to preliminary results published by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). During the same period, the number of jobs in the US automotive sector rose by 260 600, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics.
“The main driving force of this growth is the ongoing trend to automate production in order to strengthen the competitiveness of American industry globally, to keep manufacturing at home, and in some cases bring back manufacturing that had previously been outsourced to other countries,” said Joe Gemma, president of the IFR.
The IFR strongly supports the idea that education and training systems must be adapted to enable current and future workers to reap the benefits of robotics. This task falls to both public and private sectors and requires strong cooperation between the two.
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