Experts’ Opinion On Cobots: How Collaborative Robots Are Creating New Jobs?

Much of the current discussion on automation is of the "robots-killing-jobs" variety. This alarmism is unsurprising. After all, most research to this point has focused on the introduction of robots into manufacturing, or on computer algorithms that automate routine tasks. These are changes that have replaced and will continue to replace, jobs that many workers, families, and communities have historically depended on. But if history is any guide, the technologies adopted in the workplace of the future may be quite different than those that were initially dominant. As Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo (2019) suggest, the future of work and the workforce will depend on the balance between labor replacing technologies – those that supplant human brawn or rote repetition – and, in their language, labor reinstating technologies, that generate new tasks at which humans have a comparative advantage, noted Brookings.

Such balance can be formed through the emergence of collaborative robots or cobots. But some still fear that even cobots can replace human jobs as well. Let's explore what is the view of experts over this.

Shelley Fellows, Vice President of Communications at Windsor, Ont.-Based AIS Technology Group

Technology is often blamed for replacing humans in the job market but when Shelley Fellows looks at a collaborative robots — a cobot — she sees the result of highly paid, highly skilled labor. "I see the mechanical designer who designed the tooling at the end of that robot arm… I see the workers who fabricated that tooling. I see the electrical designer and the engineers who designed the electrical system and the circuitry. I see the programmers who programmed the controls. I see the vision system designer and the programmer for the vision system."

"I see all of those highly skilled people; and without them, you wouldn't see that robots on the factory floor."

Linda Hasenfratz, CEO, Linamar Corp.

"While robotic technology kills certain jobs, automating the more monotonous tasks typically leads to more interesting, better-paid positions… Between 2012 and 2019, the Guelph, Ont.-based parts supplier increased employment in Canada by almost 40 percent, but the payroll was up 60 percent. Most of the increase in employment occurred in jobs such as engineer and programmer."

"I think that is an interesting evolution, and it is a win-win all around, but that does have implications for our education and training system… We have an increased need for people in engineering, technology, math, the trades. We need to make sure we are graduating people with more skills."

The collaborative robots also help ease a chronic labor shortage plaguing the parts industry, Hasenfratz said.

"We have got huge shortages and need for people in all of these areas… By automating tasks that are more repetitive, the industry can shift its workforce into the higher-value jobs, Hasenfratz said.

William Melek, Director of the University of Waterloo's Ontario Robotics Research Center, RoboHub

"Making this happen will require a collaborative ecosystem of industry, researchers, policymakers, and advisers working together to address everything from workforce training to safety policies for working around collaborative robots, as well as encouraging their development and evolution."

"We can't be working in isolation," he said.