The impacts of a sewing robot

In 2015, SoftWear Automation introduced a new robot called LOWRY, a sewing robot that can make up to 17 shirts an hour, much faster than a human sewing line.

The selling point SoftWear Automation is trying to drive home is their robotic sewing machine can replace a line of 10 workers and produce 1,142 t-shirts in an eight-hour period, compared to 669 for a human sewing line. A robot working under the guidance of a human handler can make as many shirts per hour as about 17 humans.

The problem this poses is what will happen to those workers, especially in poor and third world countries if their jobs become automated?

In a September 2016 article titled "If The Robots Steal All The Sweatshop Jobs Then How Will The Poor Get Rich?" on Forbes, contributor Tim Wortsall pointed out an issue that goes beyond just fashion. If we begin automating all of the cheap labor, what path does that leave for cheap laborers?

SoftWear Automation's sewing robot poses a threat to factory worker jobs

Worstall's article goes on to mention a study by the International Labour Organisation that revealed, the jobs of nearly 90 percent of garment and footwear workers in Cambodia and Vietnam are at risk from automated assembly lines – or “sewbots” – according to a new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are 9 million people, mostly young women, dependent upon jobs in textiles, garments, and footwear within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) economic area, which includes Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, and these are the workers the ILO identifies as most susceptible to losing their jobs to the new robot workforce.

In 2015, the Economist revealed that a robotic sewing machine could throw garment workers in low-cost countries out of jobs.

Well, here the robot is, albeit with only limited capabilities. Like all things involved in the progress of technology, there is no stopping it.

As Quartz reported, Tianyuan Garments has invested 20 million dollars in a 100,000-square foot factory in Little Rock, Arkansas, planned to open in 2018. The factory will be staffed with 21 robotic production lines supplied by SoftWear Automation, and will be capable of making 1.2 million t-shirts a year.

Automating sewing lines could also pull business out of China. Where the cost of labor in China is usually significantly cheaper than in the U.S., Tianyuan says that with an automated sewing line production would only cost about 33 cents a shirt. In contrast, in Bangladesh labor costs about 22 cents per shirt with human production costs. This would put the U.S. almost on par with one of the cheapest labor markets in the world.

Currently, SoftWear Automation is only selling it's product in the U.S., but the implications if they start to expand to international markets could have dire economic impacts for the poorest members of third-world countries where people are dependent on low-paying manufacturing jobs for any type of income.

Photo: via softwearautomation.com