Japan’s service robot market projected to triple in five years

As Japan grapples with an aging population and labor shortages, businesses are increasingly turning to service robots to help fill the workforce gap, according to Bloomberg. Research firm Fuji Keizai forecasts that the country’s service robot market will nearly triple by 2030, reaching ¥400 billion (approximately $2.7 billion). This growth is largely driven by projections from the Recruit Works Institute, which anticipates a labor shortfall of 11 million workers by 2040, while a government-supported institute estimates that nearly 40% of the population will be aged 65 or older by 2065.
To highlight how robots are addressing this challenge, Bloomberg cites Skylark, the largest table service restaurant chain in Japan, which employs around 3,000 cat-eared robots to deliver food to diners. Yasuko Tagawa, a 71-year-old employee at one of the chain’s Tokyo locations, noted that about half of her job now involves some form of robotic assistance. At one point, she expressed her appreciation to a robot by saying, “Thanks for your hard work. I’ll be counting on you.”