Japan faces a 16 percent slide in the size of its work force by 2030,
raising worries about who will do the work.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people
in grayingJapan by 2025, a thinktank says, helping to avert worker
shortages as the country's population shrinks.
Japan faces a 16 percent slide in the size of its workforce by 2030
while the number of elderly will mushroom, the government estimates,
raising worries about who will do the work in a country unused to, and
unwilling to contemplate, large-scale immigration.
The thinktank, the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation, says robots
could help fill the gaps, ranging from microsized capsules that detect
lesions to high-tech vacuum cleaners.
Rather than each robot replacing one person, the foundation said in
a report that robots could make time for people to focus on more
important things.
Japan could save 2.1 trillion yen ($21 billion) of elderly insurance
payments in 2025 by using robots that monitor the health of older
people, so they don't have to rely on human nursing care, the
foundation said in its report.
Caregivers would save more than an hour a day if robots helped look
after children, older people and did some housework, it added. Robotic
duties could include reading books out loud or helping bathe the
elderly.
"Seniors are pushing back their retirement until they are 65 years
old, day care centers are being built so that more women can work
during the day, and there is a move to increase the quota of foreign
laborers. But none of these can beat the shrinking workforce," said
Takao Kobayashi, who worked on the study.
"Robots are important because they could help in some ways to alleviate such shortage of the labor force."
The current fertility rate is 1.3 babies per woman, far below the
level needed to maintain the population, while the government estimates
that 40 percent of the population will be over 65 by 2055, raising
concerns about who will look after the greying population.
Kobayashi said changes was still needed for robots to make a big impact on the workforce.
"There's the expensive price tag, the functions of the robots still
need to improve, and then there are the mindsets of people," he said.
"People need to have the will to use the robots."
($1=102.34 Yen)
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Rodney Joyce)
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