As a manufacturing automation engineer, I can say that this is an incorrect view.
First, employees are way more expensive than their takehome pay. You have benefits, liability, managerial overhead, training, turnover, and facilities costs for every employee. Someone making 20k/yr might easily cost a company 50k/yr to employ.
Second, automation is rarely done to simply replace people. You automate tasks, not jobs. Most customers are looking for improved consistency, not increased yield or quality. That improved consistency means they can better predict their supply chains which leads to savings which dwarf the costs of labor. The other major reason for automation is reducing skill requirement - this frees up skilled employees for more valuable tasks, and removes a major impediment to scaling production.
Finally, most companies have no problem investing in automation. Interest rates are low so its easy to get cheap financing, and robots are in vogue so many companies will invest in automation even where it makes no sense to portray themselves as efficient. Indeed, most companies are more concerned with their valuation than their profits, and the more automated a company is, the more valuable it is in a sale. It's actually really hard to convince customers that they'ed be better served by a cheaper, simpler solution.
First, employees are way more expensive than their takehome pay. You have benefits, liability, managerial overhead, training, turnover, and facilities costs for every employee. Someone making 20k/yr might easily cost a company 50k/yr to employ.
Second, automation is rarely done to simply replace people. You automate tasks, not jobs. Most customers are looking for improved consistency, not increased yield or quality. That improved consistency means they can better predict their supply chains which leads to savings which dwarf the costs of labor. The other major reason for automation is reducing skill requirement - this frees up skilled employees for more valuable tasks, and removes a major impediment to scaling production.
Finally, most companies have no problem investing in automation. Interest rates are low so its easy to get cheap financing, and robots are in vogue so many companies will invest in automation even where it makes no sense to portray themselves as efficient. Indeed, most companies are more concerned with their valuation than their profits, and the more automated a company is, the more valuable it is in a sale. It's actually really hard to convince customers that they'ed be better served by a cheaper, simpler solution.