As President Donald Trump seeks to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing, many industry leaders are looking to robots as the most efficient way for American factories to compete with cheap labor overseas. “We think robotics has had a positive impact on U.S. manufacturing by creating better, safer and higher paying jobs for American workers,” said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), a trade group. WORKFORCEAccording to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by A3, U.S. companies added a record 136,748 robots to factory floors over the past seven years, while creating 894,000 new manufacturing jobs. In addition to cross-training existing workers, some industry experts say robotics and coding (computer programming) should become staples in grade school shop classes. “At one point I realized, wow, I’m doing my dad’s job,” Blanck said.

Source: Fox News July 07, 2017 17:03 UTC