China’s universities produce about 350,000 mechanical engineering graduates per year, as well as electricians, welders and other trained technicians.
By comparison, American universities graduate about 45,000 mechanical engineers each year.
Jonathan Hurst, the chief robot officer and a co-founder of Agility Robotics, a leading American robot manufacturer, said finding skilled employees had been one of his biggest challenges. As a graduate student in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Mr. Hurst said, he was one of two mechanical engineers.
