Manufacturers across the United States installed 44,303 new industrial robots in 2023, a 12 percent jump year-on-year, according to the International Federation of Robotics. Missouri is part of that surge: the state's factories employed 292,200 people in May 2024, up 1.5 percent from the previous year, even as production lines added cobots and six-axis arms, notes the Missouri Manufacturing Indicators brief. Automation might suggest safer workplaces, and national figures do show overall improvement. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics news release reports that non-fatal injuries in U.S. manufacturing fell to 355,800 cases in 2023, with a recordable-case rate of 2.8 per 100 full-time workers, down from 396,800 cases the year before.
But dig deeper and a more uneven picture emerges. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's robotics portal warns that most robot accidents occur during non-routine tasks such as programming, maintenance, or setup - exactly when human technicians enter a machine's safety envelope.
