Figures from 2025 place China's share of worldwide industrial robot installations at 59%, while deployments across the United States expanded by 12%. Path Robotics' chief revenue officer Heather Carroll told a broadcast outlet that robotic automation holds potential for addressing gaps in available labour.
According to International Federation of Robotics tracking figures, roughly 354,000 industrial robots were deployed across Chinese factories throughout 2025, representing a year-on-year increase of around 20 percent compared with 2024 volumes. Ranking just behind China, the United States accounted for roughly 38,500 installations, placing it among the two largest markets for such equipment worldwide.
Publishing an interview on Oct. 16, the news outlet conveyed Carroll's view that three interconnected obstacles — restricted access to financing, unpredictable consumer demand, and a shortage of workers with the technical know-how needed to deploy automation — can slow manufacturers down. Carroll noted that advances in artificial intelligence have the potential to make robotic deployment more straightforward, adding that the available labour pool falls short of what the work demands.
Preliminary figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics put seasonally adjusted manufacturing job openings at 522,000 for August 2026, a count that ran roughly 106,000 above the total recorded twelve months prior. Within that grouping, the number of vacancies tied to skilled trades goes unspecified.
According to projections from the American Welding Society, roughly 320,500 additional welding professionals will be needed across the country by 2029 — a figure that accounts for unfilled positions already on the books, expected expansion within the industry, and workers who will leave the field over that period.
Saronic Technologies' Port Alpha shipyard development in Brownsville, Texas, was the example Carroll drew on. Groundbreaking on the venture took place September 30, according to the Port of Brownsville, with more than $3 billion in private funding committed to the effort by Saronic. Up to 10,000 positions tied directly to the yard could materialise over the coming ten years, according to Saronic's projections.
Robotic welding compatibility has been built into the manufacturing design, alongside automated production workflows and workforce development programmes put together with nearby educational institutions. Disclosed in a February announcement from both firms, a robotics-assisted welding venture pairing Saronic with Path Robotics is set to take shape at Saronic's Franklin, Louisiana shipyard as a distinct physical-AI undertaking.
Saronic's manufacturing head, John Morgan, noted that the company is looking into how physical AI and automation technologies might advance its shipbuilding work. Data from the International Federation of Robotics placed global industrial robot installations at more than 600,000 in 2025, with a projected rise to 655,000 units in 2026 — a year-on-year gain of around 9%.
