technology
In Transient
Posted:
2:10 PM PDT · march 9, 2025
Facing an aging population and workforce deficits, Eastern enterprises are increasingly turning to service robots to enhance their teams, as reported by Bloomberg.
The research firm Fuji Keizai forecasts that the nation’s service robot sector will nearly triple by 2030, reaching ¥400 billion ($2.7 billion). A significant factor driving this projection is The Recruit Works Institute’s prediction of an 11 million labor shortage by 2040, while a government-supported organization estimates that close to 40% of the population will likely be aged 65 or older by 2065.
To demonstrate how robots are bridging this gap,bloomberg highlights Japan’s largest table-service restaurant chain,Skylark,which employs around 3,000 cat-eared robots for food delivery. At one of the chain’s locations in tokyo,Yasuko Tagawa,who is 71 years old,estimated that half of her responsibilities now involve some form of robotic assistance.
At one moment,Tagawa expressed to a robot,“Thanks for your diligent efforts. I’ll be relying on you.”
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