Data & statistics

Robotics and manufacturing, by the numbers

87 reference pages on the robotics and manufacturing statistics people quote, from robot installations and density to wages, job outlook, and workplace safety, plus the cost and productivity figures worth getting right. Every figure is defined so you know what it measures.

Robotics adoption What employers expect to reshape work: AI 86%, robots 58% Asked which technologies will transform their business by 2030, employers put AI and information processing first at 86% and robots and autonomous systems second at 58%. The gap between those two numbers is the most useful thing in the survey.

Robotics statistics More than half of America's industrial robots sit in just 10 states The most-cited state-level map of US industrial robots puts more than half of them in 10 Midwestern and Southern states, led by Michigan. We could find no fresher free breakdown anywhere, and this one is a decade old.

Robots and employment Two-fifths of your skills go stale in five years, and that is an improvement Employers expect 39% of a worker's existing skills to be transformed or outdated within five years. The figure is quoted as evidence that change is accelerating, but it has fallen from 44% and from a pandemic peak of 57%.

Robots and employment The jobs forecast almost nobody quotes in full: 170m up, 92m down Employers surveyed by the World Economic Forum expect technology and four other forces to create 170 million jobs and destroy 92 million by 2030. The number that matters is the one in between, and it is the one that goes missing in the retelling.

Manufacturing workforce Reshoring and FDI announced 244,940 US jobs in 2024 Companies announced 244,940 US manufacturing jobs in 2024 through reshoring and foreign direct investment, across 1,412 cases. These are announcements, not payroll, and the distinction is where most citations go wrong.

Manufacturing economy Poor interoperability: $15.8 billion a year in capital facilities Two NIST-commissioned studies priced inadequate interoperability: $15.8 billion a year in capital facilities and at least $1 billion a year in the automotive supply chain. In half of tooling jobs, the CAD data had to be repaired.

Manufacturing economy Industrial and commercial motor systems use 29% of the US grid Industrial and commercial motor systems together consume more than 1,000 terawatt-hours a year, 29% of the US electric grid load, at a cost of $166 billion in electricity and 765 million metric tons of CO2. The Department of Energy figures.

Robotics market FANUC has shipped a million industrial robots since 1977 FANUC passed a cumulative one million industrial robots shipped in August 2023. It took 40 years to reach the first 500,000 and six more to double it. The milestone figures, from FANUC's own release.

Robot safety Robot contact and human pain thresholds: what research has measured Independent studies have measured where human pain begins under robot contact, and they disagree substantially. Pressure thresholds vary threefold by body location, and two studies of the same location differ by more than double.

Robotics workforce Robotics engineer salary: what the $122,930 figure actually measures The $122,930 median quoted for robotics engineers is O*NET's wage for Engineers, All Other, the residual category robotics engineering sits inside. Here is what it measures, and how it compares with the technicians and mechanics who maintain the same machines.

Workplace safety A million warehouse robots, and what happened to injury rates Amazon has deployed its one millionth robot across more than 300 facilities. Over the same period a Senate investigation put its warehouse injury rate above the industry average every year it examined.

Manufacturing economy Preventive versus predictive maintenance: what the savings actually are The US Department of Energy puts predictive maintenance at 8% to 12% cheaper than preventive, and preventive at 12% to 18% cheaper than reactive. Other government estimates of maintenance cost disagree by a factor of four.

Manufacturing economy What missing robotics standards cost US manufacturers: $40.4 billion a year NIST estimated that better standards and measurement in advanced robotics would be worth $40.4 billion a year to US manufacturers. Its own publications also print the figure as $40.1 billion, which is worth knowing before you cite either.

Robots and employment Jobs at risk from automation, by country: the OECD puts it at 14% The famous 47% figure has a direct rebuttal. Applying a task-based method to survey data across 32 countries, the OECD put the share of highly automatable jobs at 14%, ranging from 6% in Norway to 33% in Slovakia.

Workplace safety Caught in machinery: the US severe injury and amputation numbers Body parts caught in running machinery is the leading cause of severe workplace injury in the US, at 12,930 reports and 18% of the total. Manufacturing accounts for 69% of them. The OSHA figures, assembled.

Robotics adoption How many manufacturers use robots? Canada 8.4%, UK 14%, EU 16% Three national statistics agencies measured how many manufacturers use robots and got 8.4%, 14% and 16%. All three are right. The gap is definitions and years, and it is why a single global adoption rate does not exist.

Industrial networking Industrial network market share: Ethernet, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT Industrial Ethernet now takes 79% of newly installed nodes, against 34% in 2015. The protocol shares underneath are trickier: the reporting denominator changed, so 2026 figures are not comparable with earlier years.

Robotics market Logistics leads professional service robot sales, up 14% Transportation and logistics leads professional service robot unit sales excluding medical, up 14%, ahead of hospitality, in a market of more than 199,000 units. Service robots, separate from factory arms. Traced to the IFR.

Robotics statistics About 14% of robot installs name no customer industry IFR could not assign a customer industry to 14% of 2024 robot installations. That 14% counts inside the same 542,076-unit total as the sector shares, so electronics at 24% and automotive at 23% are floors for those industries. Quote the gap with the shares. Traced to the IFR.

Robotics workforce Machinists earn about $58,750; 299,500 jobs, little growth ahead Machinists earn about $58,750 a year on O*NET, roughly 299,500 strong, with little or no employment change projected and about 29,500 openings a year on average through 2034. The human occupation behind CNC and robot machine-tending, traced to source.

Robotics workforce Plant machinery mechanics: $63,510 median, 538,300 jobs, +13% Industrial machinery mechanics, maintenance workers, and millwrights earn a $63,510 median, hold 538,300 jobs, and are projected to grow 13%, much faster than average. The closest official wage line for robot-cell upkeep, traced to the BLS.

Robotics market China runs 43.5% of the world's working industrial robots China holds 43.5% of the world's 4,663,773 operational industrial robots, far ahead of Japan at 9.7%, the US and Korea at 8.4% each, and Germany at 6.0%. Country shares of the installed base, traced to the IFR.

Robotics market US auto plants installed 13,700 robots, the top US robot buyer US automotive plants installed 13,700 robots, up 10.7%, making cars the largest robot-buying industry in the country, ahead of metal and machinery at 3,800 units and electronics at 2,900. Traced to the IFR.

Robotics workforce Welder pay and outlook: $51,000 median, 457,300 jobs, +2% US welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers have a median wage of $51,000 and about 457,300 jobs, with employment projected to grow 2% over the BLS 10-year horizon, per the Occupational Outlook Handbook. These are the human occupation figures, so they are not a robot-displacement forecast.

Manufacturing workforce US manufacturing had about 428,000 job openings in December 2024 US manufacturing had about 428,000 job openings in December 2024, with 7.6 million total nonfarm openings at a 4.5% rate, per the BLS JOLTS release of February 4, 2025. This is a December 2024 snapshot; pull the current JOLTS release for today's level. Openings count vacancies on the last business day of the month.

Robotics market Plastic and chemical products took about 5% of robot installs Plastic and chemical products accounted for about 5% of the world's industrial robot installations, just ahead of food and beverage, per the latest IFR World Robotics yearbook. The share rests on a 542,076-unit total, with 14% of installs unassigned to any industry.

Robotics market Food and beverage took about 4% of robot installs Food and beverage accounted for about 4% of the world's industrial robot installations, a mid-pack industry behind electronics, automotive, and metal, per the latest IFR World Robotics yearbook. The share sits on a 542,076-unit total, with 14% of installs unassigned to any industry.

Robotics market US installed 34,200 robots in 2024, down 9% The US installed 34,200 industrial robots in 2024, down 9% from 2023, which was 68% of the 50,100 units installed across the Americas, per IFR World Robotics 2025. The 50,100 is a regional figure, and installations are separate from A3 order counts.

Robotics market India installed a record 9,100 robots, sixth worldwide India installed a record 9,100 industrial robots in the latest year, up 7%, and ranked sixth in the world, according to the IFR World Robotics yearbook. It is a fast-growing but still small market next to the top five.

Robotics market Japan installed 44,500 robots, the world's second market Japan installed 44,500 industrial robots in the latest year, a slight 4% decrease, keeping it the world's second-largest market. This counts robots installed in Japan, separate from robots produced by Japanese makers.

Robotics market Germany installed 26,982 robots, still Europe's largest market Germany installed 26,982 industrial robots in the latest year, down 5%, and stayed the largest robot market in Europe and the fifth-largest in the world, per the IFR World Robotics yearbook. The ranking held even as the raw count slipped.

Robotics market Europe installed 85,000 industrial robots, down 8% Europe installed 85,000 industrial robots in the latest year, an 8% drop, with the European Union accounting for 67,800 of them. These are annual installations from the IFR World Robotics yearbook, separate from the total operational fleet.

Robotics statistics Robot density: why IFR published both 177 and 132 for 2024 IFR put global robot density at 177 per 10,000 in its World Robotics 2025 foreword and at 132 in an April 2026 release. Both describe 2024. China's statistics bureau revised the manufacturing headcount in between, and almost the whole gap is that one change.

Robotics market Medical robot sales jumped 91% to about 16,700 units Medical robot sales rose 91% to about 16,700 units, the standout growth story inside the IFR's service robot data. This is sample data rather than a full-industry total. This page traces it.

Robotics market Professional service robots hit about 200,000 units Sales of professional service robots reached almost 200,000 units in the latest year, up 9%, with logistics robots the biggest slice. This is IFR sample data rather than a full-industry total. This page traces it.

Robotics market Chinese robot makers took 57% of their home market Chinese robot makers outsold foreign suppliers at home for the first time, taking 57% of China's market, up from about 28% a decade ago. This page traces the shift.

Robotics market Electronics passed automotive as the top robot buyer The electronics industry took 24% of new robot installations and automotive 23%, so electronics was the largest customer industry again. The margin was thin. This page traces the split.

Robotics market The world's operational robot stock hit 4.66 million About 4.66 million industrial robots are in operational use worldwide, up 9% in the latest count. That is the running stock, separate from the 542,000 installed in the year. This page traces both.

Robotics market Metal and machinery is the #3 robot industry: 16% of installs Metal and machinery is now the third-largest customer industry for robots, at 16% of installations, up 2 points. It sits behind electronics (24%) and automotive (23%) in the latest IFR World Robotics yearbook.

Robotics market Robots in service by region: Europe 821,384, the Americas 542,464 The latest IFR World Robotics yearbook puts Europe's operational robot stock at 821,384, the Americas at 542,464, and Japan at 450,530. They add regional detail to the global installed base of 4,663,698.

Robotics market North American robot orders rose 6.6% to 36,766 units North American companies ordered 36,766 robots worth $2.25 billion in the latest year, up 6.6% in units from the year before, according to A3. Collaborative robots reached nearly a fifth of the year's orders.

Robotics workforce Electro-mechanical technician pay and jobs: the BLS numbers The BLS tracks electro-mechanical and mechatronics technologists and technicians, the closest official occupation to a robotics maintenance tech. Median pay is about $70,760, with roughly 15,000 jobs and slow growth ahead.

Workplace safety US manufacturing had 391 workplace deaths, out of 5,283 total Across US industry, 5,283 people died from work injuries in the latest CFOI year, with 391 of those deaths in manufacturing. The figure counts fatal work injuries in the sector, from vehicles to falls to machines, so it is not a robot-death count, and reading it as one is a common mistake.

Robotics cost What does a robot cost per hour versus a human? The unsourced number The robot-versus-human hourly cost comparison anchors countless automation pitches, but it has no primary source. The canonical example gives monthly and annual figures, not hourly, with a floating human-wage assumption.

Robotics cost Do 30%, 50%, or 70% of automation projects fail? Nobody is sure The claim that most automation projects fail is everywhere, but the rate quoted ranges from 30% to 70% or more, attributed vaguely to 'analysts.' A figure that spans that wide is not a statistic.

Manufacturing economy The '$260,000 an hour' downtime figure: who actually said it? The claim that manufacturing downtime costs $260,000 an hour is everywhere. Trace it and the carriers agree on the source, Aberdeen Research, but none of them link or date it, and they cannot agree on whether it is an average or a worst case.

Robot safety Why robot-death counts are overstated: the keyword trap Counts of robot fatalities built by searching incident data for the word 'robot' overstate the toll. The database returns deaths that happened near a robot but were not caused by one, including a worker who died of natural causes in a robotic weld area.

Workplace safety What robot fatality case files actually record The individual robot-fatality investigations that do exist point to one failure again and again: the robot was live when it should have been locked out. What the OSHA and NIOSH-family case files record.

Workplace safety How workers die on the job in the EU: struck, crushed, machines More than a quarter of EU workplace deaths, 27.1%, come from losing control of a machine or equipment, Eurostat's largest single cause. On its separate contact-mode scale, 23.8% are struck by something in motion and 13.8% trapped or crushed. The causes and contact modes behind the machine and robot hazard, kept apart.

Workplace safety Workplace deaths in the EU: 3,298, and manufacturing's share The EU recorded 3,298 workplace deaths in its latest Eurostat year, a rate of 1.63 per 100,000 workers. Manufacturing accounted for 443 of them and 522,000 non-fatal injuries. The measured safety record, from Eurostat.

Workplace safety The US workplace injury rate: 2.4 per 100 workers The BLS private-industry injury rate was 2.4 per 100 full-time workers in its latest release. Separately, OSHA Form 300A submissions from more than 385,000 establishments reported more than 18 million days away from work. Two different scopes, not one continuous claim.

Robotics adoption AI adoption is a big-firm story: 37% of firms with 250+ staff The 'everyone is adopting AI' story is really a large-firm story. 37% of US firms with at least 250 employees use AI, against a much smaller share of small firms. The automation frontier is concentrated, not universal.

Robotics reliability How long does an industrial robot last? The 12-year figure is a guess The widely repeated 'robots last about 12 years' is not a measurement. It is the bookkeeping assumption the IFR uses to estimate the robot population, and the IFR itself calls the uncertainty, 5 versus 12 versus 15 years, substantial.

Robotics market Japan builds robots for export, not for home Japan is the world's robot workshop, and most of what it makes leaves the country. In the big welding applications, Japanese makers ship several times more robots abroad than at home.

Robotics workforce Who keeps the robots running, and what they earn: $64,520 The people who keep factory robots and machinery running are industrial machinery mechanics: 439,600 of them, a median of $64,520 a year, in a field growing much faster than average. A different, larger job than 'robotics technician.'

Manufacturing economy US manufacturers spent $314 billion on new capital US manufacturers spent $314.3 billion on new capital in 2022, up 10.6%, most of it on equipment. The hard dollar anchor behind 'factories are investing in automation,' from the Census Bureau's 2023 Annual Capital Expenditures Survey.

Robotics market Where the world's new robots go: by region and by industry Asia takes 74% of the world's new robot installations, Europe 16%, the Americas 9%. The United States installed 34,200 robots in 2024, and around 40% of them went to automotive. Where robots actually go, traced to source.

Robotics market Robot installations did not set a record last year: they peaked in 2022 Coverage calls each year's robot installations a record. They are not. Installations peaked in 2022 at 552,946 units, and the two years since came in below that, with the next record still forecast for later this decade.

Robotics market Korea's robot industry passed 6 trillion won in sales Korea, the world leader in robot density, has a domestic robot industry of 2,509 firms that has passed 6 trillion won in sales. The source figures behind a market that is rarely traced in Western coverage.

Robotics market Japan's robot factories: 176,215 built and 182,464 ordered Japan is the world's dominant maker of industrial robots. Its makers built 176,215 units and took orders for 182,464 in the latest year, both down from the year before. The source figures, in units and yen.

Robotics market China builds most of the world's robots: 556,000 units a year China produced 556,000 industrial robots in its latest reporting year, up 14.2%, and installed 295,000 of the world's new ones. The country both makes and buys more robots than anywhere else, traced to the source figures.

Robot performance How well do robots actually pick from a bin? The measured rates Robots do not pick perfectly. On real hardware, a state-of-the-art suction system succeeded on 82.3% of picks, and just 73.3% on hard objects. A separate system reached 600 picks an hour at 96 to 99% on dense metal parts.

Robots and employment Will automation wipe out factory jobs? BLS projects a 1% decline Against the automation-apocalypse narrative, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects US production jobs to decline just 1.0% over its latest 10-year horizon, while total employment grows 4.0%. The official projection, traced to source.

Robotics market Cobots are about 10% of robot installations, not the majority Collaborative robots get outsized attention, yet they were 10.5% of the industrial robots installed worldwide in the latest IFR count. Cobots are a tenth of the market, well short of the future-is-here majority the coverage implies.

Robot performance A robot's repeatability is not its accuracy: the measured gap A robot's repeatability spec is a sub-millimeter number; its actual accuracy out of the box is far worse. In one measured study a high-precision arm was off by 1.7730 mm before calibration, and calibration cut that to 0.1041 mm.

Robot performance Robot repeatability under load: the spec versus the measurement A robot arm rated at plus or minus 0.1 mm repeatability measured worse under load, with the spread reaching about 0.2 mm at 16 kg. The datasheet is one number; the measured accuracy depends on what the robot is carrying.

Robot performance The cobot study where output fell and posture improved In a controlled study, workers made fewer products with a collaborative robot than without one, 5.35 versus 8.03. What improved was their posture. A measured counterexample to the cobot productivity pitch.

Robot performance A cobot's measured productivity gain: 10%, not a multiple Collaborative-robot marketing implies large throughput gains. A time-studied assembly cell measured the actual gain at 10%. Here is the study, and why a measured number beats a marketed one.

Robot performance How much energy does an industrial robot use? Mostly overhead Two measured studies of industrial arms found that overhead, electronics and brakes and holding position, dominates power draw, and that less than 2.5% of the energy consumed becomes useful mechanical work. The numbers vendors do not publish.

Robots and employment 9% of workers, 23% of hours, 47% of jobs? GAO says nobody knows Estimates of what automation threatens range from 9% to 47%, and they do not share a denominator: one counts workers, one counts work hours, one counts jobs. The US Government Accountability Office reviewed them and concluded the underlying data is not good enough to say. The disagreement is the finding.

Manufacturing policy Manufacturing USA: the 17 federal institutes and what they cost The US runs a network of federal advanced-manufacturing institutes, several focused on robotics and automation. GAO counted 17 as of December 2024. CRS costed the network at about $3.6 billion in public and matching funds when it stood at 16. Here is what the network is, from GAO and CRS.

Manufacturing economy Is US manufacturing declining? The share of GDP and the world it holds US manufacturing is 12% of the economy, and America's share of global manufacturing fell from 28% to 16.5% before recovering to 18%. The numbers behind 'US manufacturing is declining' are more complicated than the slogan.

Manufacturing workforce US manufacturing jobs: 17.1 million in 2000, 12.6 million by 2018 US manufacturing employed 17.1 million people at the start of the century and 12.6 million by the time Congress's research service last counted, in 2018. Here are the figures behind 'manufacturing is dying' and 'manufacturing is back,' traced to that report.

Robotics cost Do cobots pay back in 195 days? Tracing the number everyone quotes The figure that cobots pay for themselves in 195 days is quoted across the industry. It traces to Universal Robots' own marketing, based on customer data it has not published a method for. Here is the trail.

Robotics cost The 3x robot integration rule: where the number actually comes from The rule that a robot cell costs about three times the robot is quoted in nearly every automation-budgeting article. It traces to a consulting report almost nobody can open, quotable only through a single trade editorial.

Robots and employment '47% of jobs at risk': what Frey and Osborne actually measured The famous claim that nearly half of jobs will be automated traces to a single Oxford study. It estimated the probability that occupations are susceptible to computerisation rather than predicting that 47% of jobs will vanish. Here is what it really said.

Automation and output Do robots really run 24/7? The measured runtime is far lower The pitch is that robots run around the clock. The best measured data on manufacturing machine runtime shows a median of 32% and a weighted average of 54.5%. The 24/7 figure is a ceiling, not a norm.

Automation and output Do robots boost productivity? US manufacturing productivity says not lately Robots are sold on productivity. US manufacturing labor productivity growth went from 3.4% a year to negative over the era automation accelerated. The measured record does not show the promised surge.

Automation and output Robots multiplied. US factory output barely moved. What the numbers show The world's operating robot fleet passed 4.6 million while US industrial production sits barely above its baseline and runs below capacity. Automation is not tracking output the way people assume.

Robotics adoption How many US firms actually use robots? Far fewer than you would think The story is that everyone is automating. The US Census Bureau's own firm survey found only about 2% of US firms use robotics. A newer Census release puts it far higher. The gap is the whole story.

Robotics market North American robot orders: the quarterly number every trade outlet quotes Every US robotics headline about orders traces to one source: the quarterly data from the Association for Advancing Automation. Here are the figures, and how to read them without getting the story wrong.

Robot safety Robot workplace deaths: what the public record does and doesn't show The figure of about 41 US robot-related deaths is quoted widely, but it cannot be verified through any free primary source, and the same agency has published two different totals. This page traces what is and is not documentable about robot workplace fatalities.

Robots and employment 'One robot destroys 5.6 jobs': what the study really measured The viral statistic that one robot destroys 5.6 jobs comes from a real, careful study. But the 5.6 figure is a local-labor-market estimate, not a claim that each robot nationwide eliminates 5.6 jobs. Here is what the researchers actually measured.

Manufacturing workforce The 2.1 million missing manufacturing jobs: what that number actually is The claim that U.S. manufacturing will have 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030 is everywhere. It traces to a survey of about 800 executives rather than a government projection, and it is usually mis-attributed. Here is exactly what the number is.

Robotics workforce What a robotics technician actually earns, and why the wage is hard to find There is no federal wage line for a robotics technician. The government folds the job into a broader category with a median near $73,900 a year. This page shows where that number comes from and what it does and does not cover.

Robotics reliability Robot reliability numbers: the vendor claims and the one independent study Manufacturers advertise robot uptime in the high nineties and mean time between failures in the tens of thousands of hours. The one independent study of more than 400 factories found a robot cell is reliable 88 percent of the time, with 87 minutes between failures.

Robotics statistics Robot density statistics and where they come from The most-cited robot density figures are stale. Here are the current numbers, where each one comes from, and why the global average fell while automation kept rising.