Despedir robots

Foto: Junko Kimura/Getty Images

Foto: Yuriko Nakao/Reuters

Na primeira foto vemos robots a trabalhar numa fábrica de automóveis da Nissan e na segunda na Yaskawa Electric. No Japão os robots são um símbolo do seu desenvolvimento tecnológico e, também, da sua qualidade de vida. Estão em todo o lado e não só no mundo do trabalho. Mas a recessão atinge a todos e o Japão não foi excepção; com ela vêem os despedimentos. É o que está acontecer ao robots japoneses segundo o New York Times:

They may be the most efficient workers in the world. But in the global downturn, they are having a tough time finding jobs.

Japan’s legions of robots, the world’s largest fleet of mechanized workers, are being idled as the country suffers its deepest recession in more than a generation as consumers worldwide cut spending on cars and gadgets.

At a large Yaskawa Electric factory on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, where robots once churned out more robots, a lone robotic worker with steely arms twisted and turned, testing its motors for the day new orders return. Its immobile co-workers stood silent in rows, many with arms frozen in midair.

They could be out of work for a long time. Japanese industrial production has plummeted almost 40 percent and with it, the demand for robots.