iPhone manufacturer Foxconn replaces nearly half of factory workers with robots

Robots are taking over iPhone manufacturer Foxconn: the world's biggest contract fabricator has successfully replaced as many as 60,000 factory workers with sophisticated machines that use artificial intelligence to perform elaborate assembly work more efficiently than humans do, a government official told the South China Morning Post. One Foxconn plant has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots" and "more companies are likely to follow suit," said Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region in the Jiangsu province, which is a manufacturing hub for the electronics industry. About 600 major companies in Kunshan are planning to tap artificial intelligence to replace workers with robots. Foxconn Technology Group confirmed to the BBC that it was automating "many of the manufacturing tasks associated with our operations." Still, Foxconn insists that using robots does not entail long-term job losses.