The founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com predicted that the company's 700,000 delivery workers will eventually be replaced by robots.
According to the Financial Times on Saturday, Richard Liu, founder and chairman of JD.com, said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Forum held in Beijing the previous day, "In the future, robots will deliver packages, and sooner or later, the day will come when delivery workers are basically not needed."
JD.com is one of the companies representing China's e-commerce and platform economy, alongside Alibaba and Meituan. In particular, given that it directly operates a nationwide logistics and delivery network, Liu's remarks are being received as a symbolic message about China's platform labor market as a whole.
However, Liu also raised concerns about large-scale job losses. "We really don't want our 700,000 brothers to go without food and lose their jobs," he said, emphasizing the need for retraining existing delivery workers.
Liu did not offer a specific forecast on when robot delivery would spread in earnest. But various automation experiments are already underway in China.
According to the Financial Times, in Shenzhen, robots are delivering food to airport passengers, and a pilot project is also operating in which autonomous robots use commuter trains to restock convenience store inventory.
The Chinese government is fostering artificial intelligence (AI) and the robotics industry as core national strategic industries. At the same time, it is demanding employment stability from companies, leaving it grappling with the dual challenges of expanding automation and maintaining jobs.
Youth employment is indeed considered a major challenge for the Chinese economy. China's youth unemployment rate for those aged 16 to 24 reached 16.3% in April. On top of this, a record-high of about 12.7 million university graduates are expected to newly enter the labor market this summer.
Accordingly, JD.com has signed contracts with about 120 schools to provide delivery workers with future job training such as robot repair and maintenance. The aim is to support workers in taking on new roles even if automation reduces existing delivery work.
Experts point out that "in a situation where AI and robot automation are rapidly replacing simple, repetitive tasks, unemployment and income instability could grow if worker retraining and social safety nets fail to keep pace."
