>> That person who did that could spend their time inspecting the stamped parts, loading the material and supervising the robot instead of wearing themselves out doing a repetitive task. Automation doesn't have to replace the complete manufacturing process, just the easy parts.
Automation always reduces labor costs. If the company wants to spend the savings on a human doing something else that's an option, but the notion that automation creates more jobs is false.
> the notion that automation creates more jobs is false
This is true in the first-order analysis but history has shown that people with free time will find a way to use their newfound time to create new industry. It wasn't all that long ago that >50% of people were farmers. We don't have 50% unemployment now that we have mega-combines and all the other machinery that has made it so <1% of people need to farm. We won't have 50% unemployment when the robots come to do factory jobs and drive trucks.
That is just people filling unmet existing demand and has nothing to do with the automation. They would have done that anyway if it paid as well or better.
Automation kills jobs. We know this because the businesses paying for it understand TCO. And even though higher paying jobs are "created" in the form of robot builders and maintainers, there are fewer of those needed than are replaced. So even if the TCO was the same, there would be strictly fewer man-hours worked with automation.
Automation always reduces labor costs. If the company wants to spend the savings on a human doing something else that's an option, but the notion that automation creates more jobs is false.