Robots are helping businesses in Singapore address labour shortages, from construction to customer service.
Faced with labour shortages exacerbated by the pandemic, businesses in Singapore are increasingly turning to robots to handle a variety of tasks. From scanning construction sites to helping at libraries, automation is bridging the gap left by fewer foreign workers. The city’s reliance on foreign workers has diminished significantly, with the workforce dropping by 235,700 between December 2019 and September 2021, as reported by the manpower ministry. Covid-19 restrictions have accelerated the adoption of technology and automation by companies to cope with this decline.
At a construction site, a four-legged robot named Spot, designed by US company Boston Dynamics, scans the ground to assess work progress. The data is sent to Gammon Construction’s control room, reducing the need for human workers. General Manager Michael O’Connell shared that using Spot allows the company to operate with just one human worker, compared to the two previously required. “The shift towards autonomous solutions is gaining momentum,” O’Connell noted, highlighting that industry labour shortages, worsened by the pandemic, are likely to persist.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s National Library Board has deployed two shelf-reading robots in one of its public libraries, capable of scanning up to 100,000 books a day, or 30% of the collection. This innovation significantly reduces the time and labour spent manually checking bookshelves. “Staff no longer have to read call numbers one by one, streamlining the process,” said Lee Yee Fuang, assistant director at the National Library Board.
With 605 robots installed per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing sector, Singapore ranks second globally for robot deployment, behind South Korea, which has 932 robots per 10,000 employees. Robots are also being integrated into customer service roles, with over 30 metro stations set to feature robotic baristas serving coffee to commuters. Keith Tan, CEO of Crown Digital, the company behind the robot barista, stated that the technology addresses one of the biggest challenges in the food and beverage industry—staff shortages—while creating new job opportunities. However, some commuters still miss human interaction. “We always want to have some kind of human touch,” said commuter Ashish Kumar, as he enjoyed his robot-made coffee.
