JD.com is one of the largest e-commerce services in China, and has hundreds of thousands of employees under them. Recently, its founder shared about the development of the robotics arena, and stated that 700,000 of their delivery workers will soon be replaced by robots.
This indirectly shows the rapid development of the robotics arena in the country, which will have a changing effect on the labor market. The JD.com founder also aims for the future, all delivery and courier tasks to be completely handled by robots.
Several pilot projects involving the use of robot delivery have begun in several locations in China, testing the capabilities of robots and public acceptance.
However, the development of this arena will also lead to some new forms of job demand, especially in terms of robot maintenance. The JD.com founder said that robots are machines, and they need people to repair them. JD.com is ready to sign cooperation agreements with around 120 schools in an effort to train their delivery drivers in repairing and maintaining robots – thus ensuring that their delivery workers remain employed in the future era of robotics.
For the Southeast Asian region itself, Grab is seen to be quite active in investing in companies focusing on robotaxis and self-driving, thus showing their initial steps in preparing for the era of human drivers.
