While a Chinese factory worker gets an average salary of 3000 or 4000 RMB which is equivalent to 30,000 – 40,000 INR, his Indian counterpart earns only half of that amount. India may have an advantage in salary circuit and the skill development scheme launched by our Prime Minister may help make up the skills that the Indian workers lack, but is the racing and pacing against China so easy?
China has turned to Robotics to trim the costs of labour, the demand for industrial robots grows higher and along with it the productivity and quality of Robo products also grow higher. Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics maker and a leading manufacturer of Apple’s iPhones, has replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots in its Chinese factories. China will be able to produce 100,000 annually by 2020 and produce 500,000 industrial robots with six axis of greater flexibility. Sales of service robots will also exceed 30 billion yuan by 2020.
The big difference is, China does not fear job losses as US and India do. China produces more workers than robots. The Ford factory in Hangzhou has only 650 Robots but 2,800 workers. As Paul Buetow of General Motors sums up, “Robots aren’t the threat, but not being able to run your business with products that people want to buy are the ones.”
The Chinese may continue to lead at least for the time being and India can try to increase its pace and decrease the margins.
