By Timothy Aeppel

(Reuters] – North America’s companies have added a record amount of robots over the past nine months as they rushed their assembly lines, and struggled with adding human employees.

According to data compiled and analyzed by the Association for Advancing Automation, factories and industrial users purchased 29,000 robotics. This is 37% more than the previous year. The robots were valued at $1.48 trillion. The 2017 record was broken by this new high, set before the worldwide pandemic.

As companies try to meet high demand and avoid shortages, the rush to invest in robots is part a wider upswing. Many firms are struggling to attract back the workers who were displaced from the pandemic. Robots can be seen as an option to human muscle and added to their production lines.

“Businesses just can’t find the people they need – that’s why they’re racing to automate,” said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation, known as A3.

Also, robots continue to expand their footprints in other parts of the economy. Since long, most industrial robots were purchased by auto firms. In 2020, sales of industrial robots to all types of businesses outpaced the auto industry for the first-ever time. This trend has continued in 2019. According to A3, auto-related robot orders grew by 20%, to 12,544 units in the first nine months, while non-automotive orders jumped 53%, to 16,355.

“It’s not that automotive is slowing down – auto is up,” said Burnstein. Other sectors, such as metals and food producers are also growing faster.

John Newman’s company is one of them. Athena Manufacturing in Austin has now installed seven of the robots it uses for metal fabrication. The company purchased its first robot in 2016. Newman stated that robots helped Athena to respond to an increase in demand. This included a 50% rise in parts orders from semiconductor equipment makers.

Athena also said the machines allowed her to transition to an 24/7 operation last year. Although the company now employs 250 people, it wouldn’t have been possible to hire workers for unpopular night shifts.