In Japan – a nation many of us associate with gadgets and consumer electronics – the robotics industry appears to be declining.

 

The nation’s legions of robots, the world’s largest fleet of mechanized workers, are being idled as the country suffers its deepest recession in more than a generation as consumers worldwide cut spending on cars and gadgets, according to The New York Times.

 

“We’ve taken a huge hammering,” Koji Toshima, president of Yaskawa, Japan’s largest maker of industrial robots, told to the Times. Profit at the company plunged by two-thirds, to 6.9 billion yen, about $72 million, in the year ended March 20, and it predicts a loss this year. The Japan Robot Association noted that shipments of industrial robots fell 59 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

 

However, other sectors of the industry appear poised for growth. Last week, a major Japanese mobile service robot developer showed interest in licensing GeckoSystems’ Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security and Service, meaning the Japanese robot developer will seek to improve its manufacturing and distribution services in the island nation.

 

Over the last eight to 10 years, the Japanese government has spent $100 million in grants to Sanyo, Toshiba, Fujitsu, NEC (News - Alert) to develop personal robots for the nation’s eldercare crisis. GeckoSystems’ robots are specifically designed for the elderly population.

 

Sources within the Japanese government project their domestic market to range from $26 billion in 2010 and to nearly $70 billion by 2025 for personal robots.

 

In 2005, more than 370,000 robots worked at factories across Japan – The New York Times said – about 40 percent of the global total, representing 32 robots for every 1,000 manufacturing employees, according to a report by Macquarie Bank. Prior to the recession, a 2007 government plan for technology policy called for one million industrial robots to be installed by 2025, which would appear to be a long-shot at this point.