Technology
The Outlook for Automation and Manufacturing Jobs in Seven Charts
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The Outlook for Automation and Manufacturing in Seven Charts
View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here.
Over the last decade, the prospect of mass automation has seemingly shifted from a vague possibility to an inescapable reality.
While it’s still incredibly difficult to estimate the ultimate impact of automation and AI on the economy, the picture is starting to become a bit clearer as projections begin to converge.
Today’s infographic comes to us from Raconteur, and it highlights seven different charts that show us how automation is shaping the world – and in particular, the future outlook for manufacturing jobs.
The Age of Automation
The precise details are up to debate, but here are a few key areas that many experts agree on with respect to the coming age of automation:
Half of manufacturing hours worked today are spent on manual jobs.
- In an analysis of North American and European manufacturing jobs, it was found that roughly 48% of hours primarily relied on the use of manual or physical labor.
- By the year 2030, it’s estimated that only 35% of time will be spent on such routine work.
Automation’s impact will be felt by the mid-2020s.
- According to a recent report from PwC, the impact on OECD jobs will start to be felt in the mid-2020s.
- By 2025, for example, it’s projected that 10-15% of jobs in three sectors (manufacturing, transportation and storage, and wholesales and retail trade) will have high potential for automation.
- By 2035, the range of jobs with high automation potential will be closer to 35-50% for those sectors.
Industrial robot prices are decreasing.
- Industrial robot sales are sky high, mainly the result of falling industry costs.
- This trend is expected to continue, with the cost of robots falling by 65% between 2015 and 2025.
- With the cost of labor generally rising, this makes it more difficult to keep low-skilled jobs.
Technology simultaneously creates jobs, but how many?
- One bright spot is that automation and AI will also create jobs, likely in functions that are difficult for us to conceive of today.
- Historically, technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed.
- AI alone is expected to have an economic impact of $15.7 trillion by 2030.
Unfortunately, although experts agree that jobs will be created by these technologies, they disagree considerably on how many. This important discrepancy is likely the biggest x-factor in determining the ultimate impact that these technologies will have in the coming years, especially on the workforce.
Technology
Ranked: Largest Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
Most of the 10 largest semiconductor foundries in the world, are headquartered in just three Asian countries, accounting for 90% of the entire industry’s revenue.

Ranked: Largest Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
They’re in our phones, cars, planes, and even fridges.
Semiconductor chips have become critical for the modern way of life, and the biggest semiconductor foundry companies rake in billions of dollars from widespread demand.
This chart shows the largest semiconductor foundry companies by their percentage of global revenues in Q1 2023, using data sourced from Trendforce.
Semiconductor Foundry Companies by Revenue
At the top of the list and dwarfing every other company by revenue share is TSMC which earned 60% (or nearly $17 billion) of the entire industry’s revenue in Q1 2023.
Founded in 1987, TSMC is a pure-play foundry that has become Taiwan’s largest company and manufactures products for a host of clients including Apple, NVIDIA, and AMD.
Rank | Company | Country | Revenue (Q1 2023, USD) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | TSMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $16,735M |
2 | Samsung | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $3,446M |
3 | GlobalFoundries | 🇺🇸 US | $1,841M |
4 | UMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $1,784M |
5 | SMIC | 🇨🇳 China | $1,462M |
6 | HuaHong Group | 🇨🇳 China | $845M |
7 | Tower Semiconductor | 🇮🇱 Israel | $356M |
8 | PSMC | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $332M |
9 | VIS | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $269M |
10 | DB Hitek | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $234M |
Other | $556M | ||
Global Total | $27,860M |
Note: Revenue based on the following conversion rates: USD 1 = WON 1,276; USD 1 = NTD 30.4.
Well behind TSMC in foundry revenues is integrated device manufacturer Samsung, the biggest company in South Korea, which made $3.4 billion (12.4% of the industry’s revenue) from its semiconductor manufacturing business.
GlobalFoundries from the U.S., UMC from Taiwan and SMIC from China round out the top five, with each taking home around 6% of industry’s revenue share in Q1 2023. The former spun out from AMD’s manufacturing arm when the company went fabless in 2009.
Industry concentration is apparent in semiconductors. For example, the top 10 semiconductor foundry companies account for 98% of the entire industry’s revenue. Furthermore, 90% of the market is dominated by companies in just three Asian countries: Taiwan, South Korea, and China.
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