Automation is a job creator — check with Amazon.com
Amazon.com’s nationwide search for a second corporate headquarters site is getting a lot of attention. And with good reason: The company says the new headquarters will generate 50,000 high-paying jobs.
The initiative is only the latest move by Amazon to create tens of thousands of new jobs. The company has been one of the biggest job creators in California, and the nation, for many years.
But here’s something else about Amazon: The firm is also on the cutting edge of automation. Amazon uses robots extensively in the warehouses and distribution centers it has spread throughout the country.
Amazon’s story is a vivid example of how automation and job creation, rather than being in competition with each other, can actually go hand in hand.
California legislators would be smart to keep this in mind. Rather than doing the bidding of narrow interests seeking to block the spread of automation, we should welcome it. Californians stand to benefit directly from the new jobs automation enables. And with our edge in research and technology, we also can be a center of the robotics industry itself, which will bring with it even more high-level, well-paying jobs.
This issue came to a head this year when the Legislature approved new funding for electrification projects in California’s ports, a proven way of reducing air pollution. But lawmakers added a provision blocking the use of any of that money for projects using automation. The motive was clear: The unions representing port workers feared the automation projects would kill jobs.
But this fear is largely misplaced. Though an individual automation project might result in some disruption in the workforce, it will ultimately help far more workers than it hurts. More efficient ports that can move freight faster will attract more shipping, which will lead to more employment on the docks and throughout the region — not less. Automation will also help the ports fight off competition from new ports being planned or built in Mexico.
Opposing automation now to save jobs is like regretting that the invention of the automobile killed jobs in the covered wagon industry, or that the computer reduced the number of printing industry jobs. That’s true, but it misses the point: Both inventions vastly increased the productivity of labor, increased each worker’s value, and led to the creation of far more high-paying jobs than were lost in the transition.
Consider the story of Marlin Steel, a Baltimore manufacturer almost forced out of business by competition from China. Marlin responded by automating its factory with robotic wire-forming machines and began making highquality baskets for such customers as Boeing, General Motors and Disney. Marlin doubled its workforce over a decade and increased pay from minimum wage to between $15 and $30 an hour.
Online grocer Boxed.com recently automated a warehouse in Edison, N.J., replacing 100 workers with robots. But instead of laying those workers off, the company offered them all new jobs, then added another shift to meet its fast-growing demand.
The story at Amazon is similar. The company has added 100,000 robots in 25 warehouses across the country since 2014. But the firm’s human workforce has exploded, from about 45,000 to 125,000. The company currently has 5,000 job openings for software developers alone.
The best public policy is to encourage automation while investing in community college, vocational education and job-training programs to help anyone displaced by technology to remain in the workforce.
California has always been a leader in technology, innovation and change. We shouldn’t abandon that ethos now. Instead, we need to embrace the future while lifting up all of our residents and helping them adjust so they can benefit from the increased opportunity the new economy will bring.