Hand-wringing hides the fact that Mexico is employing more, and fewer are coming to work in the U.S.

The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) cites that between 2010 and 2016, 136,748 robots were shipped to the US --the most in any seven-year period in the US robotics industry. At the same time, US manufacturing employment increased by 894,000 and the unemployment rate fell from 9.8% to 4.7%. Yet manufacturers, robotics associations, ethicists and media pundits are still fighting the robotics and jobs issue. Brett Brune, Editor in Chief of Smart Manufacturing magazine, argues that "the hand-wringing around robotics and jobs in the US really needs to stop." Manufacturers around the world, including in China, are busy figuring out how quickly to acquire robots.