The British bank’s new note estimates humanoid robots can offset 60% of the projected labour-force decline by 2035, with China’s workforce shrinking by 37 million people over the next ten years. Up to 24 million humanoids would be needed.
Barclays published a research note estimating that China’s deployment of humanoid robots could offset as much as 60% of the country’s projected labour-force decline by 2035.
The arithmetic underneath the note is the part that gives the number its sharpness. China’s working-age population is, on Barclays’ demographic forecasts and a 65% participation-rate assumption, expected to contract by 37 million people over the next ten years.
Manufacturing is roughly a quarter of China’s economy, so a 37-million-worker decline is not, on the bank’s framing, a slow-acting demographic question. It is an industrial-based risk that arrives within a single decade.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!Barclays’ broader ‘Robots Roll Out, Economies Rewire’ research quantifies the trade as needing up to 24 million humanoid robots deployed across the Chinese workforce by the mid-2030s, equivalent to roughly 4% of the country’s current labour force, to fill the projected gap at the level of effective output rather than at the level of nominal employment.
