The extent of such change is most obvious in those countries which industrialised first, and today Britain and the United States have a smaller percentage of their workforce in manufacturing than they did in the early years of their respective industrial revolutions. Because this process of productivity gains leading to job losses in manufacturing is global, some forecasts predict that at the current rate of displacement, factory employment, which accounted for 163 million jobs in 2003, is likely to employ no more than a few million people by 2040.
Manufacturing work, while often more complex than many imagine, is repetitive and thus highly liable to automation. As we approach ‘peak human’ it is in this sector where – just as with horses in the opening decades of the twentieth century – the old world will transition to the new more quickly than many imagine.
A stunning representation of the changes automation can efect on productivity and jobs can be seen with the Dutch tech giant Philips, one of the world’s leading companies in the manufacture of lighting. While the business has more than a hundred facilities located across multiple continents, their Drachten plant in the Netherlands is home to some of the most sophisticated industrial technology on Earth. Here,
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