Robots Help US Manufacturers Compete With China

February 21, 2013

After decades of losing jobs to China and other low wage countries, the manufacturing sector in the United States is now expanding -- thanks in large part to the integration of advanced technology into production processes. While this development has so far sparked only a modest increase in employment, Some American manufacturers are optimistic that technology will create more highly skilled jobs for those workers being replaced by robots.

In what may be the beginning of a new trend in American manufacturing, Sunit Saxena recently moved his production operation from China to the United States.

“Just like everyone else we started in China because the cost of labor was low but then by the time we started and as we went further down this path they started raising the rates on us in China,” Saxena said.

Saxena is the CEO of Altierre Digital Retail in San Jose, California. The company makes digital price displays and signs for retail stores that can be updated from a computer.

Altierre now employs between 50 and 60 workers, fewer than it used to in China, and pays them about $10.00 an hour. Using new electronic testing stations, Saxena says the company has doubled productivity -- making it cost-competitive with China. The company is planning to increase automation -- not to replace all workers but to make labor an insignificant part of overall production costs.