Samsung

As Chinese wages rise, Samsung looking to replace human labor with robots

posted by Daniel P. / Oct 20, 2015, 2:38 AM

As Chinese wages rise, Samsung looking to replace human labor with robots

Robots. We all love them, right? Well, would you love them if the buggers are taking your job on the conveyor belt? That's exactly what might be happening in Samsung's factories, where rising wages of Chinese workers are forcing its hand to switch to robotics for its assembly and other production needs.

Korea's government is fronting Samsung $15 million to develop and produce in-house the types of robots needed to replace human labor in the production process. We say in-house, as the government has concluded that not only is more expensive to import such machines, but also it wants the country to become a robotics powerhouse - a place long occupied by neighboring Japan.

The whole project of replacing some of the ever-more-expensive Chinese labor with robots in Samsung's factories should be finished by 2018. As per the Korean Minister of Trade and Industry: "Once affordable robots reach the market and are more widely used, it can lead to the creation of ‘smart factories’ and bring about far-reaching innovations to the manufacturing sector."

source: YonhapNews via SamMobile

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23 Comments

1. Acer_Predator unregistered

Yes It was quite time ago that china government announced minimum national wage.. And apple said they gonna move production to india or bangladesh bcos wages are very low there.. What a disgrace is it ..

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 2:44 AM 4

8. vincelongman

Posts: 5677; Member since: Feb 10, 2013

Unfortunately, companies won't care as long as we keep buying their products Unless we manage to convince enough people to stop buying, these companies will keep using cheap labour

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 3:33 AM 9

10. Finalflash

Posts: 4063; Member since: Jul 23, 2013

Yea but that is mainly in Apple's case seeing as how they're the ones on the exploitation route. Samsung making robots is perfectly fine and the more adult route to take. Apple, being the company that doesn't invent anything, has decided to keep their billions and invest in human suffering.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 4:21 AM 7

12. Wiencon

Posts: 2278; Member since: Aug 06, 2014

Apple is of course the source of evil on whole world

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 4:26 AM 2

13. Finalflash

Not the source but an innovator on evil. They don't actually invent any of their own evil, they take the evil works of others and then put it together in an evil package that is uniquely Apple..... They then sue the original creators of the evil.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 6:26 AM 5

20. 47AlphaTango

Posts: 718; Member since: Sep 27, 2015

Like other companies don't do evil stuff. For example: 1. How good is the after sales service of samsung even after the warranty has expired. Will they repair your phone? 2. From all existing android phone providers like huawei, samsung, htc, LG, asus, acer, lenovo, xiaomi, oppo, meizu, zte, gionee, oneplus. Does all of them provide OS updates to their product? 3. Without Siri, would google and microsoft invent their own digital assistant on their mobile devices? 4. Without improving the fingerprint sensor technology for mobile devices. Will there be a better smartphone than the atrix? 5. Does the playstore provide all apps on your device without any incompatibility issues? 6. Without apples developer inspiration towards the development of applications. Would there be any mobile applications for android and windows? 7. If iphone 5s. Co processor wasn't made. Would qualcomm and other chip makers made a co processor?

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 9:30 AM 2

21. gersont1000

Posts: 473; Member since: Mar 13, 2012

I may hate Apple but they are far from being the only extremely greedy company. This is just another example of companies that will fire anyone no matter how important that job is for the employee's survival just so that they can save a penny. It's really sad to imagine our future where robots and self driving cars will take the jobs of millions of people and create an even wider gap between the poor and rich. I think Samsung phones are way better than iPhones but unfortunately they are now copying their business practices it seems more than anything else (like making fragile phones just because they are prettier and which will need to be repaired more, or omitting expandable memory to force the customer to buy more memory from them, or removable batteries so that the battery life will suck after two years and force you to buy a new phone).

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 9:38 AM 1

14. elitewolverine

Posts: 5192; Member since: Oct 28, 2013

Machines are even cheaper labor....what is your point? All humans want to pay less and get more. This is natural law.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 6:58 AM 1

22. zeeBomb

Posts: 2318; Member since: Aug 14, 2014

Oh sh*t. We're gonna have an optimus prime made out of the Samsung 840 series!

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 9:56 AM 0

2. TyrionLannister unregistered

Arise unemployment, arise.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 2:46 AM 13

3. Cicero

Posts: 1117; Member since: Jan 22, 2014

and replace food with electricity power, social behavior with communication software.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 3:01 AM 4

4. der_damo

Posts: 213; Member since: Sep 16, 2014

People earn more = well let's go to the poorer ones and keep our cashflow high.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 3:03 AM 6

5. Industriality

Posts: 131; Member since: Sep 08, 2014

I though chinese were already robots ?!

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 3:09 AM 3

17. coldspring22

Posts: 349; Member since: Feb 28, 2015

Good point. Working at foxconn factory is pretty much like being a robot. I guess that's why there were so many suicides there.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 7:33 AM 0

19. Industriality

They do not suicide, they terminate themselves. Don't forget they are bot humans.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 9:06 AM 0

6. carlemillward unregistered

Hmmm, what will the Chinese do with all that free time...

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 3:10 AM 1

7. Arch_Fiend

Posts: 3951; Member since: Oct 03, 2015

Bad Very Bad.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 3:17 AM 3

11. BORIS070

Posts: 67; Member since: Aug 13, 2015

people are losing their jobs, and Samsung only on profits thoughts, cares for them, the people will lose their jobs

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 4:23 AM 0

9. Hexa-core

Posts: 2131; Member since: Aug 11, 2015

with the Chinese gorvment messing with the nation's intrest rate... this isn't suprising news.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 3:51 AM 0

15. combatmedic870

Posts: 984; Member since: Sep 02, 2015

Well they do have to have people to run the robots. Plus upkeep and maintenance. Same thing happened with my job as a surgical tech. Robotic surgeries. Well I'm still in there changing the instruments during surgery.

posted on Oct 20, 2015, 7:24 AM 0

16. Martin_Cooper

Posts: 1774; Member since: Jul 30, 2013

There will always be some s**tty country with horrible government/dictator/king that these huge companies can open giga factories with filthy cheap labor. ALWAYS.