The textile industry may gradually become fully automated or bring social impact

In recent years, the textile industry has created a lot of job opportunities in Southeast Asia and South Asian countries. South Asian countries with large populations and low salaries hope that the demographic dividend can lead the country to economic prosperity. The World Bank estimates that in the next 20 years, South Asia will add 1.2 million a month The number of workers will be 240 million in 20 years, but the automation technology developed in the world will have a huge impact.　　 According to reports, SoftWear Automation in Atlanta, USA is developing the textile robot Sewbot, which can fully automate the entire garment manufacturing process, but it will take some time to achieve low price and reliability to replace humans. A textile worker in India earns US$1,200 a year, but now a Sewbot costs hundreds of thousands of US dollars. However, it is only a matter of time before it replaces human beings and will destroy the economic development model of emerging countries.　　 South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the demographic dividend is used as the basis for economic growth, are even more threatened. Indian economists believe that robots and artificial intelligence are more destructive than the steam, electronics, assembly plants or computer revolutions in the past, because artificial intelligence replaces more than routine work, and the demographic dividend is about to become a demographic nightmare. After 1980, the growth rate of manufacturing jobs was very slow, and some industries even declined. From 2003 to 2009, the employment growth in South Asia was only one-third of the overall economic growth level. The main reason was rapid technological progress, which led to a large number of certain industries. unemployment.　　 Indian IT service companies that have prospered in the past 30 years have also begun to be affected by automated cloud computing systems. Both Infosys and TataConsultancyServices started laying off staff this year, introducing 400 robots to replace a lot of manpower at the Hyundai Motor Factory in Chennai, India. The Indian tech industry, who did not want to be named, also said that the unemployment situation in the Indian tech industry will be more serious. His company has assessed that the introduction of artificial intelligence can replace half of its employees.　　 The textile industry bears the brunt, especially Bangladesh, which is highly dependent on the clothing industry. 82% of the total exports are clothing, and 2.5% of the population is engaged in clothing production. Including Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, 27 million people are employed in the textile industry.　　 Now Chinese factory workers earn five times more money than Indian workers, which is close to the level of Portugal and South Africa. Another reason is that making a T-shirt now is almost exactly the same as when the automatic spinning machine was invented in the 19th century, because it is difficult for a robot to pick up soft and irregular cotton and move it accurately. Hand sewing is composed of many tiny processes and decisions. , So it is difficult to be copied by software.　　 The 4 steps of sewing, picking up items, aligning, sewing and processing, only sewing has been automated, and the other parts are still completed by humans. But the Atlanta company developed the sewing robot Sewbot. In order to solve the problem of fine materials, they gave the robot a camera that functions like an eye, just like an engineer develops a self-driving car.　　 The camera photographed the stitched material to analyze, and then guided the movement of the robot arm. Wal-Mart invested US$2 million as part of the automatic production of jeans. Sewbot successfully completed the sewing of jeans in September this year, and plans to expand to T-shirts next year. Now 97% of T-shirts are produced outside the United States. Why do these large retailers need robots with a lot of cheap labor? The reason is speed. Now they have to produce 100,000 pieces of clothes at a time. They must place orders in China before September-December. If retailers want to be closer to the market, they can order first. A single 10,000 pieces can be delivered within one month and sent to the market to test the water temperature first. Amazon filed a patent in April, the content is on-demand clothing production automation technology. However, how do emerging countries that rely on the labor economy respond? The Indian Finance Minister believes that there is still time, and it may take 10 or even 20 years for textile robots to completely replace labor. He believes that before robots become smarter and cheaper to replace humans, good training, Well-organized free trade agreements and labor market reforms can increase job opportunities in the manufacturing industry.　　 Others believe that emerging countries should focus on the development of service industries, such as tourism, transportation, and finance, to make up for the loss of insufficient manufacturing supply. But if the country misses this opportunity, the social impact caused by automation will be huge. PahleIndiaFoundation, a non-profit organization in New Delhi, India, believes that all educated young people may become unemployed because of automation, which will be a nightmare in India. Article Keywords: 　Cotton Price