【英文】美国智库报告：为什么政策制定者应该支持机器人自动化来解决物流设施的生产力紧缩（31页）

英文研究报告 2023年07月07日 08:05 管理员

The average age of warehouses suggests that many do not have the layout or infrastructure to support modern systems that can enable workers to produce more output in the face of growing e-commerce demand. Installing robotic technologies is a time-consuming, expensive, and disruptive process that often requires logistics facilities to adjust or temporarily suspend full operations. Logistics facilities generally experience high levels of cost-based competition that result in low profit margins and volatility and risks in the supply chain. As a result, many may be risk averse to cost exposures.

Together, the average age of warehouses and the challenges facility managers face in installing robotic systems likely have led managers to hire more workers to meet demand as e-commerce has grown. However, output has not increased as much as employment. As a result, as seen in figure 3, labor productivity (which is the ratio of output to hours worked) within the general warehousing and storage industry has declined compared with employment levels and real sectoral output. The response to the COVID-19 pandemic likely exacerbated this trend, as workers implemented social distancing measures that disrupted operations.25 To increase labor productivity, warehouses would need to pursue more automation instead of only hiring more workers.