🤖 Automation and Robotics Don't Solve the Workforce Problem, They Just Relocate It! 🚀

[Elif Özaksu]

The Labor Shortage and the Limits of Automation​

Automating tasks is a story that has been ongoing since the dawn of industry. Robotic arms saw a major breakthrough with the introduction of the robot named Unimate at General Motors in 1961. Today, humanoid robots can run half-marathons and exhibit astonishing abilities in many fields.

So, does this mean that robots will take over all manufacturing jobs? Probably not. According to Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, the U.S. manufacturing sector may need 3.8 million workers by 2033, and approximately 1.9 million of these positions could remain unfilled if skill and applicant gaps are not addressed.

More than 60% of manufacturers view attracting and retaining talent as their primary business challenge. The federal government's goal of reaching 1 million registered apprentices also points to the same conclusion: there is a real labor shortage that needs to be filled.

The Real Bottleneck: Maintenance and Training​

Before my panel on humanoid robots at Automate 2026, I spoke with manufacturers in the U.S. about the impact of automation on the workforce. The risk I see is this: while real innovation is happening, the key to productivity gains in the near term lies not in automation, but in training and skill development. This will become an even greater bottleneck for manufacturers in the automotive and machine manufacturing sectors.

Thanks to cobots, wheeled platforms, and AI-powered systems, the need for less skilled operators will decrease. In an ideal scenario, these productivity gains would mean more revenue and expansion of operations. However, the biggest problem then will be finding the right talent to manage these machines. The hardest role to fill is the person who keeps an automated line running and develops it.

How Automation Changes the Business Model​

This situation can even change a company's entire business model. In Georgia, I met with a company that builds distribution centers for the largest retail and e-commerce companies in the U.S. These companies realized that their customers couldn't manage complex systems themselves. So, they switched to a model of leasing their own service technicians to customers to run the operations. This both increased customer efficiency and opened up a whole new line of business for the company. The company is hiring 300 new service technicians this year alone and significantly increasing its revenue.

Rethinking Training​

If robots won't take over all jobs in the near future, but rather shift them to more complex tasks, what is the missing link? The answer is training.

Companies need to invest heavily in their workforce. This requires more than just cramming people into a meeting room. Management needs to be involved in creating the right training content and, more importantly, developing a methodology that provides a short learning curve, preventing attrition and scrap rates during onboarding. Very few companies have specific KPIs to measure whether their training is actually working.

A more difficult question is who should do the training. Being good at an operation does not mean being good at explaining it to someone else. Resources on the shop floor are often limited, but a common mistake I see in many companies is assuming the most senior person is the trainer.

Sometimes this works, but it's more by chance than planned knowledge management. Choosing the trainer is as important as the material and method. Trainers need to be motivated to train, not see it as an additional burden. Companies that view preparing the right trainer as an investment tend to see strong returns.

A person who can train others well is a harder role to find than someone who can just do the job. The solution is not complex in principle: you need a deliberate process to attract and retain skilled workers, but this depends on having trainers who can transfer knowledge quickly.

The ability to transfer a skill is a distinct, teachable, and underappreciated talent in itself; it's not a personality trait you hope your senior operator has.

The Future of High-Mix Manufacturing​

Staff training is becoming the most critical task a manufacturer faces. This is especially true as generational change continues: younger people need to be attracted to manufacturing with different incentives and motivations than 30 years ago. And this points to a larger truth.

Your industry was different in many ways thirty years ago, and I argue it will look very different again in the next decade, which should be seen as an opportunity. Growing segments such as semiconductors, battery manufacturing, medical device and pharmaceutical production, and aerospace all seem to operate on highly automated lines.

What is overlooked is that quality control, compliance, and process monitoring remain difficult to automate. And for many small manufacturers doing high-mix, low-volume custom and contract manufacturing, automation will not scale sufficiently anytime soon. These tasks may one day be automated.

But a wait-and-hope approach means missing out on business opportunities in the meantime. That's precisely why now is the time to invest in your training programs. Robots aren't ready yet. Your workforce problem is here today.