Comment by nradov
1 day ago
Here's the evidence. Not a sudden implosion but a slow decline that will particularly impact the younger population groups who have typically done most of the manual labor in factories.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/05/key-facts...
Employment in China is actually pretty thin right now. The labour force reduction is surely coming down the track, but it's not here yet. There may be enough time to pivot to lower-labour options with good management.
With the exact right approach and enough luck, you can conceive that automation can replace the bodies at the rate they are lost demographically and thus avoid the crisis of underemployment or the crisis of insufficient labour. To far one way or the other and it ends in tears.
Time will tell, and it could all go horribly, terribly wrong, but if any country can thread the eye of that needle, it would be this one.
A slow decline and a population implosion arent the same thing.