Automation has been gaining traction in the workplace and is showing no signs of slowing down. According to Ark Invest’s founder and CEO Cathie Wood, automation in the workplace will rapidly increase over this decade as robot workers potentially outnumber human employees at one of the world’s biggest companies.
On Wednesday, Wood predicted that Amazon’s incorporation of automated robots will have a dramatic impact on the e-commerce giant’s employees in upcoming years.
“Amazon is adding about a thousand robots a day…If you compare the number of robots Amazon has to the number of employees, it’s about a third. And we believe that by the year 2030 Amazon can have more robots than employees,” Wood said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“So we are just at the dawn of the robotics age. And I would say artificial intelligence and battery technology are all a part of that movement as well,” she added.
As technology progresses and costs drop, the robotics revolution will no longer be solely confined to Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN); it is projected to expand over manufacturing sectors soon, Wood said- noting that when “you look at the cost declines, which drive all of our models….for every cumulative doubling in the number of robots produced, the cost declines are in the 50-60 percent range.”
As of the end of 2021, Amazon boasted a staggering 1.6 million employees, as stated in its annual report.
Despite being one of the world’s most successful companies, Amazon has recently had to let go a large number of employees. In January alone, there were more than 18 thousand job cuts across the e-commerce giant; however this figure is still well above pre-COVID levels.
Wood’s astute predictions on emergent technologies earned her esteemed recognition in 2020, when the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates and the soaring popularity of remote work caused a surge in demand for high-growth tech stocks.
In January, Wood’s Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) had one of its best showings ever with a 27.8% increase. Unfortunately, the rally only managed to slightly mitigate losses over the past two years.
The ETF is still more than 70% lower than its all-time high printed on February 2021.
Reference: CNBC
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