08-23-2017, 12:52 PM
Japan's aging and shrinking population has been partly blamed for the on-again, off-again nature of growth and deflation the past three decades. Lately, it's been driving a different and just as powerful idea: In the absence of large-scale immigration, the only viable solution for many domestic industries is to plow money into robots and information technology more generally. Humans will still be needed, of course, and that's behind a separate by-product of Japan's demographic challenges that I wrote about during a visit there last month. With unemployment down to 2.8 percent, companies are increasingly realizing they need to pay up to attract and keep qualified personnel. The other option -- increased immigration -- is politically difficult. Japanese tech innovation in yesteryear was about gadgets and games designed to give pleasure. Think Sony's iconic Walkman and Nintendo games. Now the demand in Japan comes from an older demographic. A nursing home may well be the place to look for the next wave. As my colleagues Henry Hoenig and Keiko Ujikane wrote this week, an owner of nursing homes in the Tokyo area plans to spend 300 million yen ($2.7 million) on software to make life easier for employees and residents.
Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration - Bloomberg
China is installing more robots than any other nation, and that may affect every other nation. Shipments jumped 27 percent to about 90,000 units last year, a single-country record and almost a third of the global total, and will nearly double to 160,000 in 2019, the International Federation of Robotics estimates.
China’s Robot Revolution May Affect the Global Economy - Bloomberg