Robots taking over more clerical, administrative tasks

As the march toward automation continues, a China real estate development company is pushing the trend forward by announcing that it is recruiting robots for janitorial and guard duties. China Vanke made the announcement this week, adding that it is looking at adding a premium concierge service to attract more customers, for which robots would also provide some services.

More and more, robots are threatening jobs that are increasingly easy to automate. Earlier this month, Andy Haldane, chief economist of the Bank of England, warned that robots could replace 15 million jobs in the UK, nearly half of the 33.7 million jobs that currently exist in the country. These are likely to be administrative, clerical and production tasks. This is not unique to the UK and China either. Economists have been discussing the trend for a while. Additionally, the use of industrial robots has been rapidly increasing in the US. In his book “Average is Over,” economist Tyler Cowen discusses the hollowing out of average workers in the middle class. Haldane also talked about the “deeper degrees of hollowing-out than in the past” because modern robots have “substituted not just for manual human tasks, but cognitive ones too.”

As certain kinds of robots become more relevant in professional settings, specific kinds of robotic technology may become more popular with consumers. Cleaning robots, such as the iRobot Roomba Vacuum , is already getting attention and China manufacturers have already capitalized on this trend. More of these kinds of monotonous tasks will be automatedover time and as the technology becomes cheaper, workplaces and homes alike will be utilizing more robots.