CHINA'S ROBOTS CHILLS : HIGH-TECH FUTURE ESSAY

PROFILE : KUNSHAN - CHINA : The workers left behind by China's robots. Millions of workers face loss of work in a pivot to high-tech economy.

The park was in the center of China's richest county and Hu Xinbing was resting after another day of trying, unsuccessfully, to win his share of the local prosperity.

Around him, about a dozen other out-of-work men had claimed their own corners of the park in Kunshan.

Not long ago, they would have been hard-pressed to find the downtime. Kunshan, which in the early 2010s produced one-third of the world's laptops, is at the heart of China's gargantuan electronic manufacturing industry.

For decades, millions of workers from across the country, including Mr. Hu, flocked there for steady work assembling devices for Apple and Dell. For more than 20 years, Kunshan has been ranked as China's most economically developed county.

But now Mr. Hu is one of tens of millions of workers who may be left behind by China's pivot away from low-end manufacturing toward advanced technology.

Kunshan's government has offered generous support for companies focused on technologies as artificial intelligence, or flying cars. Meanwhile, traditional electronic makers, facing uncertain demand because of trade fictions, have embraced automation, cutting positions and wages for human workers.

'' It's all robots driving screws. They don't need people to do it anymore,'' said Mr. Hu, who is originally from the poorer innland province of Henan.

In previous years, he said, he signed longer term contracts with manufacturers like Pegatron and Inventec, both major suppliers for Apple.

During peak seasons they could earn up to 6,000 renminbi or about $885, a month. But he said his previous employer had cut jobs as they introduced robots.

In May, he said they worked only day gigs, mostly security jobs, that paid between 60 and 120 renminbi, or roughly $9 to $18, each.

'' It feels like that there won't be any work left in the future, if things keep developing like this,'' he added.

The predicament that Mr. Hu and his fellow workers highlights the challenges China faces as it tries to transition into a high-tech power.

China leads the world in technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles and is vying with the United States for AI dominance. But the manufacturing jobs created by those industries are largely for skilled workers.

Those roles cannot make up for job losses among less-skilled workers, who still make up one of the biggest parts of China's work force.

!WOW! thanks Vivian Wang.