(May 28): JD.com Inc founder Liu Qiangdong vowed to prevent the e-commerce firm’s 900,000-strong workforce from losing their jobs to automation, seeking to allay growing fears that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics could replace workers.
The company, which is one of the country’s largest employers by headcount, will “do everything possible to safeguard employment for hundreds of thousands of staff, including blue-collar workers”, Liu said in an internal speech on Wednesday, according to a video circulating on social media.
“JD.com will not fire a single front-line worker replaced by machines,” he said. JD didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.
Chinese companies are racing to implement AI systems as part of a state-directed push to dominate the new technology. But those orders present a challenge to Chinese Communist Party planners who want to maintain stability in the labour market as the country reckons with a slowing economy and elevated youth unemployment.
JD, which employs staff from couriers and store clerks to AI trainers and robot maintenance engineers, is experimenting with a host of unmanned technologies. According to a recent filing, those include “unmanned warehouses, drone delivery, self-driving vehicles, unmanned delivery stations and convenience stores, among others”.
The online retailer has also set up more than 80 training bases around the country, saying they will serve to retrain workers with skills such as maintenance and servicing of automated systems, Liu said.
See also: China said to expand travel curbs to top AI talent at private firms
Liu’s comments come after a Chinese court ruled in late April that companies cannot terminate employees or cut their salaries just to replace them with artificial intelligence systems.
Chinese authorities also ruled last year that companies are legally required to retrain or reassign workers before they can be terminated — an early guardrail against AI job replacement few other countries have established.
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