South Korea has become the first nation to achieve a remarkable milestone: One-tenth of its workforce now consists of robots, a development that could help counteract the country's demographic challenges.
While robotics offers a partial solution, South Korea continues to grapple with a demographic crisis as the nation's fertility rate dropped to a record-low 0.72 in 2023, spurring President Yoon Suk Yeol to declare the declining birth rate a "national emergency."
Despite investing more than $200 billion in fertility programs over the last 18 years, little progress has been made. To address these challenges, the government has established a new ministry to focus on key demographic issues, including aging, immigration, and housing.
The East Asian powerhouse, renowned for its cutting-edge electronics and automotive industries, boasts a staggering 1,102 robots per 10,000 employees. With 28.8 million South Koreans employed as of September, according to government statistics, that comes to over 3 million robots.
This figure places it far ahead of its closest competitor, Singapore, which ranks second with 770 robots per 10,000 workers. South Korea's robot density is double that of other advanced manufacturing nations, including Japan and China.
"South Korea is a leader in manufacturing of electronics and appliances by companies like Samsung and LG. They also lead the world in high-speed internet and are very quick to embrace new technologies," Ken Goldberg, professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, told Newsweek.
He pointed out the machines in question are industrial robots, not humanoid ones like the Optimus robot still being developed by Elon Musk's Tesla.
According to the 2024 World Robotics report by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) global robot density has grown by an average of 5 percent annually since 2018. The report noted Singapore's high ranking, despite its size and relatively small manufacturing sector.
South Korea is not content to rest on its laurels. In January 2024, the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy unveiled the Fourth Intelligent Robot Basic Plan. This initiative commits over $2.24 billion in public and private investments by 2030 to advance automation across a broad range of industries, including manufacturing, health care, agriculture, logistics, defense, and social safety.
The plan also targets key technological and regulatory barriers. An August report by the International Trade Administration highlighted a goal to increase the local manufacturing rate of core robot parts from the current 44 percent to 80 percent by 2030 while addressing 51 regulatory hurdles to further streamline the robotics sector.
Asia, as a region, leads the world in automation, with a robot density of 182 units per 10,000 manufacturing employees, according to the IFR. That is a 7.6 percent rise from previous years. Korea, alongside Singapore, China, and Japan, ranks among the world's top 10 most automated economies.
Andrew Oros, a professor at Washington College, has highlighted the potential for technology to offset the shrinking workforce of East Asia's largest economies, cautioning against what he terms "demographic materialism."
Newsweek has reached out to the South Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C., with a written request for comment.
Update 12/2/24, 2:38 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Goldberg.
