Too often robots are presumed to be the guilty party in the event of any production problem. We have seen this with the much-discussed 'threat' to jobs, despite evidence that it is actually in the interest of manufacturers to balance automation with the upskilling of manual workers. There is also a widespread assumption that, when lines stop working, the cause is hiding inside the 'black box' of automation rather than a mistake on the part of the humans who manage it. Any statement to the effect that automation over the next decade and beyond will have no impact on employment should be taken with a very large pinch of salt. However, in its March 2017 report on robotics, Pricewaterhouse Coopers forecast that, although up to 46% of UK manufacturing jobs were 'at potential high risk of automation by the early 2030s', in many cases those jobs would evolve rather than disappear altogether.
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