Hyundai workers, residents in Ulsan fear impact of robots’ arrival at US factories

“We weren’t even shaken during COVID. It somehow just passed us by,” said Joo Jung-hee, an 80-year-old restaurant owner. “That’s because of the factory workers.”

Running a small restaurant in Ulsan, a city whose economy revolves around six major Hyundai Motor factories, Joo has rarely worried about sales. Even with pain-relief patches on hands darkened by age spots, she still smiles at the sight of customers streaming in each day, metimes swallowing a handful of painkillers before returning to work.

Inside the modest 82-square-meter restaurant, ten steel tables fill quickly at lunchtime. Factory workers tired of cafeteria food come for Joo’s pollack stew or ft tofu up, and the place turns into mething like a neighborhood living room. Over the years serving out food, she now knows when the next seasonal promotion is.

Restaurants nearby have changed owners several times in the past year alone. But Joo has held on to her spot, which sits directly across from the factory gates for three decades.

For her, Ulsan was the city that made it possible to raise three sons. She arrived alone at 17 from the foothills of Songnisan in North Chungcheong Province after hearing that in Ulsan there were always jobs and always something to do. In those years the city carried a simple promise: work hard enough, and anyone could become middle class.

After decades in the business, bad news rarely unsettles her. But something she heard two months ago made her pause — that human-shaped robots may soon enter the factory floor.

She stopped for a moment before speaking.

“If robots go into the factory, of course it will hurt us,” she said. “People have to be around to eat. If there are only robots, who’s going to come for lunch?”

Her words carry a simple truth. Robots are unlikely to order fermented soybean stew or drink soju with coworkers after a shift. A pandemic can pass. But a factory filled with machines instead of people may be a change that cannot easily be reversed.

Joo knows how closely her business follows the rhythm of the plant. Nine out of ten customers come from the factory, and on days when production lines stop, she prepares far less stew and fewer side dishes.

Across northern Ulsan, where the city’s factories are concentrated, the same unease is spreading.

“Robots don’t ride taxis or rent one-room apartments,” said a taxi driver met in Ulsan. “If people disappear, Ulsan’s economy will collapse.”

Six Hyundai Motor factories employing about 40,000 workers are clustered in Yangjeong-dong, the neighborhood where Joo’s restaurant is located.

Robots threaten the hands of 30-year veterans

“When the news came out that Hyundai Motor planned to deploy Atlas at its U.S. factories by 2028, the reaction among colleagues was strange. The idea was that human workers would be reduced, and the stock price went up. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

Park Tae-gyun, 52, a full-time worker in Hyundai Motor, still remembers the mood on the factory floor when Atlas was unveiled in January at CES 2026, the world’s largest consumer electronics and information technology trade show.

The humanoid robot, equipped with 56 joints, lifted a box and twisted its waist nearly 180 degrees before placing it behind its back. It looked a lot more efficient and stronger than human workers who suffer chronic pain in the back, shoulders and wrist.

What Park felt was not awe, but a chill.

Park is well connected around the company and usually in the loop about workplace developments. But he first learned through the news that the company plans to deploy the robots at overseas factories within two years.

Even the labor union knew little about the plan. The company had never explained it.

A colleague sitting next to Park, Yoon Han-sup, 59, added:

“When we were eating in the cafeteria, they kept showing videos on the screens of robots doing backflips or robot dogs running around,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘Why are they playing that?’ But looking back, it felt like they were trying to get us used to the idea. So, when I heard about Atlas, I thought, ‘Well, I guess what was coming has finally arrived.’”

When the humanlike robot appeared, unease spread across the factory floor. For now, the company says it will be introduced at a plant in the United States, but workers believe it could eventually arrive in Korea as well.

What exactly the robot might be able to do inside the factory remained unclear. Standing about 190 centimeters tall and weighing 90 kilograms, it can lift loads of up to 50 kilograms and move at roughly twice the walking speed of an adult.

Still, after nearly three decades working with machines and grease, Park felt he could guess the answer.

“It’ll probably be able to do just about anything.”

For many workers, the only thing they still trust is their hands.

Park Min-gu (a pseudonym), 58, who assembles shock absorbers on the factory line, looked down at his own — thick and bent from decades of labor. The Korean term workers use is “shoba,” a suspension part that absorbs impact when a car travels on rough roads.

After 35 years of heavy work, the experience and sweat of the job seem embedded in the tips of his fingers. The tactile sense built over years on the line is something even the most advanced robot may struggle to replicate.

Yoon allowed himself a small note of hope.

“The hardest stage in building a car is the final assembly,” he said. “That’s when workers connect the wiring and install things like the seats and dashboard onto the painted body. In the end, it’s work done with human fingers.

“Tightening small bolts or snapping connectors into place — plugging bundles of wires into parts inside the body — may look simple, but it takes delicate hand skills and a certain feel.

“Years ago, the factory once brought in part-time workers on weekends to keep up with production. Back then, a saying went around: ‘Customers don’t buy cars made on Saturdays.’ You have to apply just the right amount of pressure when tightening bolts, and the temporary workers didn’t have that sense.

“Other stages like body assembly have already become highly automated. But in final assembly, there’s still a lot of work that people have to do.”

But even then, workers are well aware even value of human hands will not last forever.

Jung Sung-yong, 54, who works on a production line assembling the midsize SUV Hyundai Santa Fe, recalled the shock he felt during a visit to the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore.

“They were converting what humans feel into pressure data and storing it,” he said. “It looked like they were analyzing exactly how much force is needed to fasten each part, then feeding those numbers into robots.”

“In the end, there may be nothing left that only humans can do,” he said. “Eventually it will become a fully automated factory where only robots are moving.”

The idea of a fully unmanned factory is not simply the anxious imagination of workers.

Hyundai Motor has reportedly discussed a project known as “DF247,” an initiative envisioning a plant that runs continuously without human presence. The concept involves a so-called “dark factory,” where robots operate production lines around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without even turning on the lights.

Hyundai Motor said the DF247 project does not mean a fully unmanned factory. Instead, the company said its goal is an autonomously operated plant where people and automation technologies work together.

Robots to debut at non-union U.S. plant, contract workers likely hit first

Public opinion is not favorable towards factory workers. Some say they are simply digging their heels.

One line from the union’s stance, albeit wrongly framed, has stuck in many people’s minds: “Not a single Atlas robot should be allowed onto the factory floor.”

Criticisms arose that the labor union is being too greedy and acting selfishly against innovation when they themselves are a “privileged union,” many earning more than 100 million won (around $68,000).

Some employees at subcontractors even cynically say labor union members often demand molds be redesigned because small parts, such as trunk latch components, are inconvenient to handle, but with robots, such won’t happen.

Factory workers voice frustration, saying things aren’t that simple.

Behind the anger lies a deeper anxiety. For workers, the issue is a matter of livelihood, yet the company has offered little explanation about what is happening.

“No one knew Atlas was going to be introduced until we heard about it in the news. Even now, nobody knows exactly which processes it will handle or how workers’ roles will change,” said Park, his face set.

The collective bargaining agreement between Hyundai Motor and the union states that both sides must hold discussions and reach a joint decision when new technology is introduced. It also calls for the formation of an Employment Stability Committee to develop measures to safeguard jobs, he said.

“The labor union opposing the deployment of Atlas without labor-management agreement is a sensical argument. We’re not trying to start a Luddite movement.”

Robots are set to be deployed at Hyundai Motor’s new plant in Georgia in the United States, where there is no union likely to oppose their introduction. But workers in Korea are likely to feel the impact soon as well.

“My pay could be cut right away,” said Kim Chang-sup (a pseudonym), 37, a full-time employee at the company.

According to Kim, production at Ulsan No.1 has already been shipped off to plants in the U.S. by a significant amount. When robots are adopted, it is likely that even more volume will be done there.

“We live on overtime pay. Our wages work more like hourly pay than fixed monthly salary. Less volume means less pay, but company is not offering any alternatives.”

According to the labor union, about 40 percent of Hyundai Motor employee’s salary is variable compensation, including bonuses and overtime or weekend work allowances.

Ironically, full-time workers are in a relatively better position, said Yoon. They are likely to be the last to feel the impact of robots, as workers outside the union are expected to be pushed out first.

“Contract workers will be affected first. Then it will spread to suppliers and parts makers. The people who have quietly worked in the most vulnerable jobs will suffer the most.”

He said there are roughly 55,000 technical jobs within the company, though Hyundai Motor says the number is closer to 30,000. Of those, about 40,000 are full-time positions. The rest are contract workers or retirees rehired on short-term contracts, typically renewed each year.

“They’ll be out of the factory once the company decides not to renew their contracts,” he said.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.