China’s deployment of humanoid robots could offset as much as 60% of its projected decline in the labour force by 2035, according to Barclays Plc, helping sustain the world’s largest industrial base as the population shrinks at a pace not seen in decades.
By incorporating a set of demographic forecasts and assuming the participation rate remains at 65%, the British bank estimates the workforce might shrink by 37 million within the next decade. A decline on such a scale would constrain a manufacturing sector that accounts for roughly a quarter of China’s economy.
Under scenarios it calls optimistic, Barclays said China’s cumulative installed stock of humanoid robots could approach about 24 million units by 2035, meaning their numbers may be equivalent to almost 4% of the labour force.
Gains in productivity expected over the coming years "would offset only a small share of the projected labour force decline, and are unlikely to fully counter China’s demographic headwinds – thereby strengthening the economic case for automation and robotics as a partial offset to tightening labour supply,” analysts including Zornitsa Todorova, head of thematic fixed-income research at Barclays, said in a report.
Beijing is also counting on productivity gains through automation to offset the loss of workers. President Xi Jinping has emphasised that investment in science and technology – including areas such as robotics – is central to driving China’s economic growth.
With a population at about 1.4 billion, China saw the lowest number of births last year since at least 1949. The working-age cohort has also been contracting and made up about 61% of the total in 2025, down from more than 70% a decade earlier.
As the population ages rapidly, the ratio of working-age people to those over 65 – currently about four to one – is projected to halve within two decades.
A smaller workforce is straining China’s manufacturing, "while creating a vast domestic market to absorb millions of robots,” the Barclays analysts said. "This is the decade of the robot - and it belongs to China.”
The bank added a caveat to its calculations, saying they depend on the assumption that "current exponential scale of innovation and deployment continue to hold.”
Its estimate that the arrival of humanoid robots could correspond to about 60% of the projected demographic shortfall "should be viewed as an upper bound, reflecting relatively optimistic assumptions around utilisation, depreciation and domestic absorption,” the analysts said. – Bloomberg
