A promise of new jobs: we will have to maintain those who do not fall ill or go on strikes

According to the experts, the industry must inevitably make a transition to robotics in order to increase work efficiency and precision and ensure safety. They also reassure that robotization will lead to creation of new jobs.

The press release indicates that as the industry is calculating future investments and considering the transfer of monotonous work to robots, there are concerns that the robots would take away jobs from people. “The people will be able to fulfil their potential in higher value-adding jobs and robotization will allow this – maintenance, control and repairs of robots will required qualified employees. Therefore, such change in the industry will create more qualified jobs,” said Gedvidas Belickas, Director of Alwark, a company trading in handling equipment. 

Robertas Urbanavičius, Associate Professor of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Mechanical Engineering Department said that robotization will inevitably lead to changes in the labour market. “The employees will simply have to be retrained. They will have to learn to make, repair and maintain the robots. Therefore, the statement that the robots would take away people's jobs is completely untrue,” said Mr. Urbanavičius.

According to the Associate Professor of VGTU, a modern robot can work without tiring for much longer hours than a man, which is one of the main advantages of robotization. “The robots can work long, tediously and honestly, because they do not fall ill, do not take vacations, do not go on strikes or get tired. If a failure occurs, they can easily be repaired and brought back to life. This is why the industry is now seriously focused on robotics,” said Mr. Urbanavičius.

According to Mr. Urbanavičius, robotization also considerably contributes to ensuring safety, especially in the situations, where human error may have irreversible consequences.