CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. — Like many businesses, Messiah Lifeways in Cumberland County has been no stranger to staffing shortages stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The senior living facility is adapting and testing out robots to help maintain the facility.
“We are still facing challenges in hiring," Messiah Lifeways President and CEO Karl Brummer said. "We are down 20 percent of our workforce pre-covid.”
Messiah brought on 'Roving Rosie,' a robotic vacuum, and a robotic 'Mr. Mow it All' as two of the latest additions to the team this summer.
“We’re really doing this as kind of an experiment to see how it works, operates, and make sure that it’s safe," Brummer said.
Messiah officials and employees say the robots help the staff put more focus on their residents.
“We are a care business, part of what we do is hands-on care, so we don’t see that going away anytime soon," Brummer said. "But if there are other activities that we can replace by automation or robots we are willing to try it.”
And they’re not alone. Despite the national unemployment rate returning to pre-pandemic levels, the makeup of the workplace is becoming more automated just about everywhere.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, recently debuted a robot that can take and perform commands.
"We really believe that using machine learning and AI we will be able to really crack and really improve and really enable robots to make a significant foray into the human-centric world," the senior director of Google's robotics research Vincent Vanhoucke said in an interview with FOX News.
Machines are doing a wider range of jobs than ever before, from bartenders to factory workers.
A 2017 study by the McKinsey Global Institute predicts that roughly one-fifth of the global workforce will be impacted by the adoption of AI and automation.
By the end of the decade, experts expect robots will replace 800 million workers across the world.
Brummer says while automation is the future, the goal isn’t to cut jobs but make them better.
“It’s not about replacing jobs," Brummer said. "It’s about how we make the best use of the staff that we have.”
Messiah officials say maintenance of the facility could be just the start of automation.
"One of the other areas is in dining. Many other senior organizations are struggling with dining staff," Brummer said. "I see the future is going to have to rely on technology more and more."