Michael Ungar discusses why manufacturers hesitate to automate. Small factories haven't adopted it yet, while larger ones are investing. Workers fear job loss, but the real shift is that physically demanding manufacturing work is losing appeal as people move to service jobs offering better balance and pay.
In my career in manufacturing, I was always involved in automation. So I was walking into manufacturers that either have already invested or were looking to invest in automation. I've actually been told that there are, especially on the smaller business side of things, a lot of manufacturing out there is still not automated at all. And there is this fear or perception that automation is just going to completely take away our jobs. And I think this is also a little bit of a reawakening. People got a chance to take some time for themselves. And realize that working a really demanding job for very low pay that leads to a difficult sort of situation quality of life-wise, it's not what people want to be doing with their time. And I think a lot of people are reevaluating that and going from manufacturing jobs into service jobs. There is a migration in these lower-skilled areas. People want to work jobs that they can at least enjoy a little bit.
