The founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has predicted that the company’s 700,000 delivery workers will eventually be replaced by robots.
According to the Financial Times (FT) on Monday, Liu Qiangdong, JD.com’s founder and chairman, told attendees at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Forum in Beijing that in the future, robots will handle package deliveries. Sooner or later, it’ll reach a point where human delivery drivers are no longer essential.
However, Liu emphasized the need for retraining, stating that it genuinely don’t want the 700,000 team members to go hungry or lose their livelihoods.
As a major player in China’s e-commerce and platform economy alongside Alibaba and Meituan, JD.com operates its own logistics and delivery network. Liu’s public acknowledgment of potential large-scale robot replacement has been interpreted as a symbolic warning for the entire Chinese platform labor market.
While Liu didn’t provide a specific timeline for widespread robot delivery adoption in China, the FT reported that pilot projects are already underway. In Shenzhen, robots are delivering food to airport passengers, and autonomous robots are restocking convenience stores while traveling on commuter trains.
The Chinese government is promoting artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics as key industrial strategies while simultaneously demanding job stability from companies. This puts local tech firms in a challenging position, balancing the need to cut costs and boost productivity through automation with the political pressure to maintain employment levels.
China’s youth unemployment rate for those aged 16 to 24 hit 16.3% in April. Adding to this challenge, a record 12.7 million university graduates are poised to enter the job market this summer.
In response to these trends, Liu revealed that JD.com has partnered with approximately 120 schools to retrain delivery personnel for future roles such as robot repair and maintenance. The goal is to ensure that workers can transition into new positions as traditional delivery jobs decrease due to automation.
Experts caution that if worker retraining and social safety nets fail to keep pace with the rapid automation of routine tasks by AI and robots, it could lead to increased unemployment and income instability.