02/10/2023

2022 Record Year For Robot Orders

The auto sector drove demand

North American companies struggling to hire workers in the tightest labor market in decades brought on more robots last year than ever before, with many earmarked for new electric vehicle and battery factories under construction.

Demand for robots appears to have slackened near the end of the year, though, raising questions about how strong 2023 will be in the face of shifting household consumption patterns and the rising interest rates engineered by central bankers to bring high inflation under control.

Companies, overwhelmingly located in the United States but including some in Canada and Mexico, ordered just over 44,100 robots in 2022, an 11 percent increase over the previous year and a new record, according to data compiled by the Association for Advancing Automation, an industry group also known as A3. The value of those machines totaled $2.38 billion, an 18 percent increase over the prior year, according to the data.

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