Onshoring Through Automation; Perpetuating Inequality?

Abstract

Many analyses of the ethical, legal and societal impacts of robotics are focussed on Europe and the United States. In this article I discuss the impacts of robotics on developing nations in a connected world, and make the case that international equity demands that we extend the scope of our discussions around these impacts. Offshoring has been instrumental in the economic development of a series of nations. As technology advances and wage share increases, less labour is required to achieve the same task, and more job functions move to new areas with lower labour costs. This cascade results in a ladder of economic betterment that is footed in a succession of countries, and has improved standards of living and human flourishing. The recent international crisis precipitated by COVID-19 has underlined the vulnerability of many industries to disruptions in global supply chains. As a response to this, “onshoring” of functions which had been moved to other nations decreases risk, but would increase labour costs if it were not for automation. Robotics, by facilitating onshoring, risks pulling up the ladder, and suppressing the drivers for economic development. The roots of the economic disparities that motivate these international shifts lie in many cases in colonialism and its effects on colonised societies. As we discuss the colonial legacy, and being mindful of the justifications and rationale for distributive justice, we should consider how robotics impacts international development.

Global and Local Operations of Finnish Metal Industry Companies during COVID-19 and Trade Disruptions: A Case Study

“…One case company was prepared to lower production because of its operations in Italy and China at the beginning of the pandemic. Another preferred to use more local supply chains to secure supply, which is in line with Nandi et al (2021) and Studley (2021) regarding the pandemic's acceleration of manufacturing offshoring. Larger inventories were also a way to mitigate risks related to complex supply chains, which supports the earlier findings of Chopra and Sodhi (2004) and Tukamuhabwa et al (2015).…”

“…According to Studley (2021), COVID-19 has accelerated the onshoring of manufacturing, which is enabled through robotics and automation. Automation and high-skilled employees can easily replace low-skilled employees and their manual tasks.…”

“…For over a decade, there has been a trend of reshoring production back to the origin countries (Bailey & De Propris, 2016). The pandemic has accelerated this reshoring of manufacturing, which is enabled through robotics and automation (Studley, 2021).…”

De la deslocalización a la relocalización: ¿Qué nos espera?

“…La automatización y robotización de procesos de manufactura, que los hace menos intensivos en mano de obra, facilitan a priori la relocalización, si bien bastantes autores enfatizan que hasta el momento no es posible afirmar rotundamente su vínculo con la denominada Industria 4.0 (Muller et al, 2017;Chiarvesio y Romanello,2018). La adopción generalizada de nuevas tecnologías de sustitución de mano de obra está permitiendo a las empresas reestructurar sus cadenas globales de valor mediante el intercambio de operaciones intensivas en mano de obra en el extranjero por operaciones intensivas en capital interno (Studley, 2021;Ancarani y Di Mauro, 2018). Las producciones de fabricación avanzada que se reubican tienden a estar muy automatizadas y, por lo tanto, permiten la fabricación de productos de una mejor calidad, pero menos empleos de los esperados (Eichengreen, 2020).…”

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: A New Ideology

“…Furthermore, countries in the Global South tend to be further marginalised, also only partially as a consequence of the international isolation of the pandemic. Whether by onshoring back to automated factories, or 'back home' outsourcing to 'the cloud', employment is increasingly confined to elites (Jones 2021, 28;Moll 2021a, 28;Studley 2021). Both at the core and on the peripheries of globalised capitalism, job losses multiply.…”