Kristalina Georgieva gave warehouse workers a number this week. "The impact over time on jobs globally we estimate to be around 40 percent — jobs either augmented or downgraded or eliminated," the International Monetary Fund's managing director said in a report published Oct. 13, 20261. She called the change "a slow moving tsunami, but a tsunami nonetheless"1.
Read that 40 percent the easy way and the warehouse floor empties fast. Pickers and packers do the most repetitive tasks in the economy. The easy reading puts them first in line.
Daron Acemoglu, the MIT economist who won the 2024 Nobel in economics, reads the same number and answers differently. "Only about 5% of tasks will be profitably automated in the near term, equivalent to a 1% or 1.5% increase in GDP," Acemoglu told Fortune in June 20264. Exposure, in his accounting, rarely becomes elimination.
The hardware backs a middle path. Counterpoint Research counted 16,000 humanoid robots installed worldwide in 20252. Goldman Sachs, in its most bullish case, expects 75,000 this year, 890,000 by 2030, and 6,500,000 only by 20353.
Chart 1
Humanoid robot shipments stay under 100,000 units through 2026, then Goldman sees 6.5 million by 2035
Global humanoid robot shipments by year, in units: Counterpoint Research's 2025 count, then Goldman Sachs forecasts for 2026, 2030 and 2035
Each point marks one year's shipment total: the 2025 point comes from Counterpoint Research's measured count, and the later points are Goldman Sachs forecasts, which stay under a million units until after 2030.
Sources: Counterpoint Research [2]; 24/7 Wall St. [3]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.
The numbers behind this chart
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 16,000 |
| 2026 | 75,000 |
| 2030 | 890,000 |
| 2035 | 6,500,000 |
America employs 1.85 million people in warehousing and storage, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts7. A robot fleet that size needs decades to arrive.
Tye Brady states Amazon's goal plainly. Amazon Robotics' chief technologist said in November 2025, "I want to eliminate every menial, mundane and repetitive job out there"8. He chose eliminate over automate.
Amazon's internal plans back him up. The company could avoid hiring 160,000 US workers by 2027. By 2033, Amazon could skip 600,000 hires, even as sales double, The New York Times reported in October 20259. Sales keep climbing while headcount holds steady.
Jon Miller Schwartz bets on a slower machine. His company, Ultra, rents warehouse robots to customers by the month, and raised $62 million on Oct. 9, 2026 to grow that bet5. "The robots that are actually changing the world are the ones doing valuable work for real people," Schwartz said. "This isn't some far-off dream. It's happening right now"5.
Ultra charges an integration fee, then a monthly bill. Warehouses pay for use and skip ownership of the machine. The capital risk sits with Ultra and its investors, Framework Ventures and Y Combinator among them5.
The real damage shows up at the door more than the floor. Hiring for junior roles, open to workers with two years of experience or less, fell 29 percentage points in a year. Inside that group, logistics hiring fell 25 percent, a Randstad survey of 11,250 workers and 126 million job postings found10.
Chart 2
Logistics hiring for new graduates falls 25 percent in a year, while warehousing employment keeps rising
Change in hiring or employment, by measure and period
The magenta columns show entry-level hiring falling over the last year, and the gray column shows warehousing employment still climbing over the next decade.
Sources: Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [7]; Caixin Global [10]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Logistics hires | −25.0% | New graduates, year over year |
| All junior hires | −29.0% | Every field, since Jan. 2024, in percentage points |
| Warehousing jobs | 1.4% | Employment forecast, 2024 to 2034 |
Warehouses kept hiring anyway. Transportation, warehousing and utilities posted 338,000 open jobs in August 2026, against 247,000 hires that month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported6. Warehousing employment itself is projected to grow 1.4 percent through 20347. The floor runs short of people, and entry-level openings run short there too.
Here is Rhoden's question, asked of a machine age: who pays, what profit changes hands, and where the risk lands. Ultra's investors profit if the rental bet works. Amazon profits if its robots clear 75 percent of warehouse tasks, the company's internal target, according to documents The New York Times reviewed9. Georgieva's fund stays outside that wager, though her number still sets the mood for every warehouse budget meeting this quarter.
The risk lands on people still outside the warehouse gate. Acemoglu raised that risk himself: "If it were the case that 30%, 40% of new university graduates can't find jobs, what would that do to democracy and social peace?" he asked in June 20264. Warehouse work was long the entry point for workers skipping college and formal networks. That entry point is the one narrowing fastest.
Georgieva's "tsunami" is real, and it moves exactly as slowly as she said. It narrows the entry point years before it reaches the floor where veterans already stand. Warehouses will keep hiring through this decade. They will hire fewer beginners while they do it.
Readers who want the next number before the headline writes itself can get it free. The Signal, AI Lately's daily email, tracks the hires, the funding rounds and the warehouse floors changing shape this week. Sign up below, and read the change one data point at a time.
Sources
- Elaine Kurtenbach, "Just 32 Countries Are Driving 95% of Global Growth as the IMF Warns of an Increasingly Uneven Economy," Fortune (AP), Oct. 13, 2026, https://fortune.com/2026/10/13/imf-global-growth-forecast-2026-ai-economic-divide/
- Staff, "Global Humanoid Robot Installations Reach 16,000 Units in 2025 as Mass Production Picks Up Pace," Counterpoint Research, Jan. 30, 2026, https://counterpointresearch.com/en/insights/Global-Humanoid-Robot-Installations-Reach-16,000-Units-in-2025
- Staff, "Robots Everywhere: Goldman Sachs Now Sees 6.5 Million Humanoid Robots by 2035," 24/7 Wall St., Sept. 13, 2026, https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/09/13/robots-everywhere-goldman-sachs-now-sees-6-5-million-humanoid-robots-by-2035/
- Nick Lichtenberg, "Nobel Laureate Daron Acemoglu on the 'Brainless' AI Discourse, the Myth of Capitalism and the Gen Z Revolution Risk," Fortune, June 21, 2026, https://fortune.com/2026/06/21/nobel-laureate-daron-acemoglu-ai-productivity-capitalism-democracy/
- Maria Deutscher, "Warehouse Robot Maker Ultra Robotics Bags $62M," SiliconANGLE, Oct. 9, 2026, https://siliconangle.com/2026/10/09/warehouse-robot-maker-ultra-robotics-bags-62m/
- Staff, "Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey," U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sept. 29, 2026, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.htm
- Staff, "Industry and Occupational Employment Projections Overview and Highlights, 2024-34," Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sept. 1, 2026, https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2026/article/industry-and-occupational-employment-projections-overview.htm
- Staff, "Amazon Robotics Chief: 'I Want to Eliminate Every Menial, Mundane Job' as AI Reshapes Warehouse Work," Fox Business, Nov. 14, 2025, https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/amazon-robotics-chief-wants-eliminate-every-menial-mundane-job-company-within-years-warehouse-work
- Staff, "Amazon Plans to Replace 600,000 Jobs With AI and Robots," Tech Startups, Oct. 27, 2025, https://techstartups.com/2025/10/27/amazon-plans-to-replace-600000-jobs-with-ai-and-robots/
- Staff, "Gen Z Faces Toughest Job Market as Entry-Level Roles Vanish," Caixin Global, Oct. 28, 2025, https://www.caixinglobal.com/2025-10-28/gen-z-faces-toughest-job-market-as-entry-level-roles-vanish-102376372.html