This article first appeared in the Morning Brief. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe

Last week, two separate but related labor market themes caught my attention.

After Thursday’s news that employees walking off the job hit yet another record in September, a report from Reuters showed that North American companies added a record number of robots this year to bolster assembly lines, in a bid to alleviate the well-chronicled labor crunch (a hat tip on this article goes to economic commentator James Pethokoukis, who runs one of my favorite reads on the global economy).

Citing data from the Association for Advancing Automation, Reuters pointed out that industrial firms rang up nearly $1.5 billion worth of robots (29,000 to be exact) — a whopping 37% more than the comparable period in 2020. Separately, Google Cloud research in June showed that two-thirds of manufacturers using artificial intelligence (AI) are relying more heavily on it.

The Morning Brief has ruminated about the impact of the labor shortage and its close blood relative, the Great Resignation. Connecting the seemingly disparate threads, it poses a burning question: Are workers reluctant to fill open jobs — or stay put in them, for that matter — sowing the seeds of humanity’s eventual demise in the labor force?

However irrational, the theme that human workers should fear the dawn of our robot overlords is hardly a novel one. Yet like everything else in the pandemic-era, the fallout from COVID-19 has poured accelerant on an already raging fire. With conditions worsening, we cannot help but wonder if workers are hastening the rise of automation in a way that displaces human labor — but in a more permanent way?

Earlier this year, Yahoo Finance’s Dani Romero reported how stressed out restaurants, which have raised pay to little avail, are leaning on technology to meet heavy demand, and fill the gaps left by a shortage of employees.

By all indications, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the worker shortage is hastening the rise of robotics and advanced technology to address demand that has mostly defied a slowing economy and the dramatic supply crunch.

In an appearance on Yahoo Finance Live last week, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop founder Stratis Morfogen waxed eloquent about his establishment’s use of self-ordering kiosks, powered by a smartphone app that lets the consumer grab and go in a creation he calls the “Automat.”

The centerpiece of the Automat is a contraption Morfogen described to The New Yorker as “The Monster.” The founder likened it to the conveyor belt that once bedeviled Lucille Ball in a classic episode of “I Love Lucy.”

For those who haven’t read, The Monster is a machine that can crank out tens of thousands of gourmet dumplings... in an HOUR. Chances are the machine won’t demand time off, ask for a raise — or be reluctant about getting vaccinated.

In fact, Morfogen is expanding the format to drive thrus, where tricked-out order technology will allow clients to “come in and out of our drive-thru [while] having zero communication with our staff. It’ll all be remote control, phone operated and with QR codes,” Morfogen told Yahoo Finance.

“COVID exposed a lot of [the restaurant industry]... we didn’t even have an online platform for ordering, we didn’t even have a social media presence, and I think hospitality learned their lesson, we have to embrace technology to make a model here,” the entrepreneur said.

“If we can get our payroll down to 15-20% instead of the industry normal of 32%, we’re not just saving one restaurant... we’re really changing the game on the industry for making it a more efficient model,” Morfogen added.

Along with previously stagnant wages, the idea that robots are coming for all of our jobs has been a major labor market theme for at least a decade — and is at least one reason behind why people found that viral video of a Boston Dynamics robot so frightening.

None of this obviates the need to pay workers fair wages, or treat them better. And there’s only so much a robot can do, given that there’s simply no equivalent for uniquely human qualities like empathy and situational judgment.

However, the longer workers quit, hold out, or put upward pressure on wages in ways that aren’t sustainable, the more we can expect employer desperation to grow in the face of resilient demand. And the more we can expect to see unsettling headlines about how the robot revolution — think Amazon’s recently-announced Alexa-powered automaton, Astro — is upon us.

You heard it here first.

By Javier E. David, editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow him at @Teflongeek

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on supply chains: 'There will be disruptions'

Richmond Fed's Barkin: Need a 'few more months' to evaluate inflationary pressures

Airlines prepare for the holiday travel crunch

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Flipboard, and LinkedIn

The major stock market indexes relinquished morning gains in afternoon trading on Friday, dropping to lows for the day. Market players hit the exits on news that Russia will suspend natural gas pipeline shipments to Germany. The Nasdaq changed course, now down 0.5%. The S&P 500 has shed 0.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 0.2%. The Russell...

‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ sees a window to get rich. He might be right.

Nio's August deliveries soared year over year, but there are plenty of clouds on the horizon too.

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc., determined to reduce the size of its sprawling delivery operation amid slowing sales growth, has abandoned dozens of existing and planned facilities around the US, according to a closely watched consulting firm. Most Read from BloombergGazprom Won’t Reopen Gas Pipeline in Energy Shock to EuropeLukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov Dies After Falling From Hospital WindowGlobal Bonds Tumble Into Their First Bear Market in a GenerationAmazon Closes, Abandons Plans for Dozens

Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferré discusses how stocks are performing into the closing bell.

KeyBanc Capital Markets Equity Research Analyst John Vinh joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss Broadcom earnings, chip stocks, supply chain issues, U.S. government banning the export of chips to China, and the outlook for the space.

When a loved one passes away, it can be an emotional experience. Unfortunately, handling the deceased's finances can add to this stress. While most people know that you need to file a final tax return for the deceased, most people … Continue reading → The post Income in Respect of a Decedent (IRD) appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest cut its stake in Nvidia ahead of the graphic chipmaker's results last month. Now it's snapped up the stock which has dropped to a 52-week low.

Donald Trump wanted to disrupt the hegemony of the Silicon Valley giants. Things don't seem to be going the way the former president wanted.

Orchid Island Capital Corp. (NYSE: ORC) is a finance company that acquires, invests in and offers financing from U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The Florida mortgage real estate investment trust (REIT) initiated an IPO in March 2013 at a price of $14.50. Its monthly dividend of $0.135 returned an approximate annual yield of 11%. However, in the last few years, the stock price has floundered, and ORC has reduced its dividend payment several times. Orchid’s price had recently be

Aurora Cannabis, Canopy Growth, OrganiGram Holdings, and Tilray Brands are all in the red yet again today.

A high-yielding dividend stock that pays more than 7% might sound too risky to consider. As a result, many dividend stocks are paying higher yields than they were a year ago. One healthcare stock that stands out for its high payout today is Medical Properties Trust (NYSE: MPW).

Some investors will be getting a bit of money back soon, the result of a big settlement between financial firm Vanguard and the Massachusetts Secretary of State. The $6.25 million settlement has to do with allegations that the firm failed … Continue reading → The post Does Vanguard Owe You Money? It's Paying Investors Millions appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

Five years after Amazon announced that it would buy supermarket chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, a big new change has just taken place -- on September 1, incoming chief executive Jason Buechel is taking over for John Mackey. "As a co-founder of Whole Foods, I've often explained my relationship to the company with a parent-child metaphor," Buechel wrote in a letter announcing his retirement to Whole Foods Staff in September 2021. The transition took nearly a year and, now, former Chief Operating Officer Jason Buechel is stepping in to lead the high-end supermarket chain.

A deposition scheduled for next week could significantly steer the outcome of Twitter’s (TWTR) trial-bound push to force Elon Musk into his $44 billion deal to acquire the social network.

The S&P 500 broke below 4,000 this week, for the first time since the end of July. It has investors wondering: Does this mark the low point of a roller coaster ride? Stocks rose all last year, fell from January to June, rallied from July to mid-August, and now are falling again. According to Wells Fargo strategist Paul Christopher, it’s evidence that the stock rally is sputtering to a halt. Christopher writes that “Cracks in financial market liquidity are appearing,” and says of the S&P 500, “3,

Investors need to pay close attention to Annaly (NLY) stock based on the movements in the options market lately.

Hotels were a great buy during COVID-19. Now that growth story is over, and I've bought shares of a fast-grower in South America.

Ready to go bottom fishing again? Any good angler can tell you that there’s plenty of good eating just waiting at the bottom of the creek, or the pond, or the lake. The same concept also holds for stocks – investors can always find some quality equities down at the market bottoms. Stocks get down there for a multitude of reasons, and the reasons aren’t always related to any fundamental flaw in the company or its share trading policies. Sometimes, it’s some idiosyncratic business move, or over-re

Call me the world’s happiest cynic, then, because when I predicted the utter and catastrophic failure of Facebook’s rebranding as “Meta” starting less than a year ago, I genuinely didn’t think it would all unravel as quickly and ignominiously as it has. Horizon Worlds, Meta’s intended metaverse, went live in December and, my god, it has been downhill from there. The good news is that we’re getting a lot of free entertainment out of Mark Zuckerberg’s attempts to be “the face” of this dead-end transition, and the past few weeks have seen some real highlights, culminating with a transcendently embarrassing appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast last week.