91 year old Raymond, the iconic branded fabric and fashion retailer has embraced automation in a massive way, sending shock-waves across the legendary textile industry in India. In a landmark decision which will have tsunami like effect across the industry, they have decided to replace 10,000 employees with robots.
This incredible transformation will be implemented across the next 3 years.
Clearly influenced by automation developments in countries like China and Europe, where robots are increasingly replacing human beings, Raymond has made this decision to cut costs, and increase efficiency.
There are 30,000 employees of Raymond, working in 16 manufacturing plants across India. By reducing 33% of its workforce, Raymond is sending a strong signal across various manufacturing verticals in the country.
Raymond CEO Sanjay Behl said, “Roughly 2,000 work in each plant. Through technological intervention we are looking to scale down the number of jobs to 20,000, through multiple initiatives in technology. One robot could replace around 100 workers. While it is happening in China at present, it will also happen in India”
In China, Foxconn has already decided to replace 60,000 employees with robots, and the trend is now sweeping across all manufacturing niches.
We had predicted that textile industry in India may lose around 70 lakh jobs in the next few years. We couldn’t predict the swiftness with which this turnaround will hit India.
When a company like Raymond, which is as old as the textile industry itself, controlling 60% of Indian textile manufacturing, adopts automation, then it means that the scare is real.
And automation is here is stay.
Move Over IT: Automation Will Impact Every Industry
As of now, the threat of automation in India was perceived only for IT industry. The confirmation by industry veterans such as Vishal Sikka regarding massive automation and reduced dependency on human beings for mundane tasks were not taken lightly.
In fact, as per various analysis, automation is all set to wipe out 50% of all IT jobs in India; a fact which was confirmed when we reported that top 5 IT firms in India hired 24% less employees in 2015 due to automation and robots.
In July this year, we reported a depressing news that automation will drive more than 3.5 lakh engineers out of job even as campus recruitment fell to 7-year low pan-India.
As if to endorse all such theories, World Economic Forum has said that automation, tech and robotics will collectively kill 50 lakh jobs by 2020.
As we are witnessing the sting of automation in IT and Engineering jobs, robots are slowly but gradually conquering other verticals as well.
HDFC Bank has already introduced robots for customer service; meanwhile ICICI Bank has automated 10 lakh banking operations using robots.
Even Pizza order has been automated now.
And now, Raymond’s automation drive to kill 10,000 jobs has hit the Indian manufacturing industry; and it will certainly be one of those permanent changes which will alter the job scenario for ever.
If you are working in manufacturing industry, then we would love to hear your views on this news.
Image Source: CGP Grey
…also, does this mean that Raymond’s clothes will now get cheaper? Always had my eye on one of those suits myself….. :)
Nonsensical article – what do you mean IT jobs will be killed? It is IT that will be *DOING* the killing – if somebody is writing software that writes software that kills jobs, that will remove only be the *lowest level* of coders jobs – that is to say, stuff that CAN beautomated. Which is exactly what piece of shi*t companies like Infosys etc. do. After all, computers can’t program themselves, right? :)
The article should have covered this – tailors may lose their job but people/companies who BUILD robots and coders who PROGRAM robots will GAIN theirs – for example ISI in Kolkata has a robotics programme. Is there anyone who thinks tailors jobs are more important than coders??!!! Don’t let me find you….!!
thank you for sharing information
thanks