Unions are understandably worried about job losses that will come as manufacturers turn to technology to curb costs and improve production and efficiency.
There’s no hiding the fact, says Taco Comfort Solutions CEO Cheryl Merchant.
“It’s definitely significant,” she said in this week’s cover story of the number of jobs the Cranston-based manufacturer expects to eliminate worldwide due to increased use of robots.
But that’s not the whole story at Taco, which employs 1,500, or the other Rhode Island-based manufacturers that already are or soon will be increasing their reliance on automation.
Repetitive jobs that a machine can more consistently do faster and better than humans will increasingly disappear. But those robots and other machines will still need people to manage them, creating new and, in some cases, better-paying jobs.
And employers who rush to curb costs without maintaining a problem-solving staff able to adapt and maintain production when machines break down will quickly fall behind their competition.
Freed of mundane and time-consuming tasks, workers can learn new skills to help boost productivity and preserve their jobs alongside the robots, says Regan Brewer Johnson, president of the manufacturing education center Jane Addams Resource Corp.
“There is a net positive effect … [with] existing workers being able to be upskilled,” she said.
VIBCO Inc. CEO Karl Wadensten agrees.
“Robots,” he said, “cannot take the genius out of people,” who the Richmond-based vibrator manufacturer will continue to rely on for the most important tasks.