> The east side of the city today has factory after factory, owned by domestic companies and global powerhouses such as Samsung, Honda, Harley-Davidson, and Procter & Gamble.
It doesn't mean that it's easy to live or to find a job there: many of those plants are just for integration, i.e., goods come pre-manufactured and pieces are just assembled there. So, many companies but not labor-intensive, with much automation taking care of everything.
That is the brave new world awaiting us all. As machines get more capable, the economic role of humans diminish. This is analagous to the fate of horses after the introduction of the internal combustion engine.
Most everyone on this site has the education and skills to stay ahead of the AI revolution for some time. But many other people already have fallen behind. If the only things you know how to do can be done by machines at less cost than a living wage, then what hope do you have to compete?
Did you read the article? There is no argument that they can't handle it. Rather, it discusses some of the challenges these migrants face moving to the city.
And not sure what the reference is to Chinese migrant workers. Other than the fact that they both physically changed locations, I see very little similarity between a 20 year old kid leaving a provincial city in Sichuan to make it big in Shenzhen and a family of indigenous refugees transitioning from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a modern, urba life.
It doesn't mean that it's easy to live or to find a job there: many of those plants are just for integration, i.e., goods come pre-manufactured and pieces are just assembled there. So, many companies but not labor-intensive, with much automation taking care of everything.