Catherwood LibraryILR School

Japan’s shrinking population, booming economy, and remarkably low unemployment rate of 2.8 percent has lent itself well to introducing and increasing automation in food service and in hotels. One company runs a restaurant and a hotel where robotic chefs who make pancakes, serve soft-serve ice cream, fry donuts and pour mixed drinks while speaking pleasantries in Japanese; at the hotel, robots check guests in and help with luggage transport. The company’s CEO speculates that 70% of the jobs at Japan’s hotels will be using automation in five years, and that while it may take up to two years to recoup the investment cost, automated employees can work 24 hours a day without needing vacation, creating efficiencies. While Japan’s particular circumstances makes it more suitable for a highly automated economy, research from think tank McKinsey Global Institute suggests that 54% of the tasks in American restaurants and hotels could currently be automated. This trend could be worrisome for American workers, however, as the restaurant and hotel industries in America have been a bright spot for employment in recent years, adding more jobs for workers that have been displaced by automation in other industries, with an increase of 38 percent since 2000, and overtaking manufacturing jobs since 2013. The cost of automated production has dropped 40 percent since 2005, while labor increases in cost as several cities increase minimum wages. Business owners insist that automation will replace dirty, dangerous jobs in favor of humans providing better guest services, and that while technology may replace some jobs, it opens up others - that require education and trained troubleshooting skills. However, almost 80% of food service workers only have a high school diploma or less.