JD.com Founder Liu Qiangdong: 700,000 Delivery Workers Will Eventually Be Replaced by Robots
Taylor Wilson
Liu Qiangdong told the APEC CEO Forum that JD.com's 700,000 delivery workers will eventually be fully replaced by robots, while announcing retraining agreements with 120 schools to convert displaced couriers into technical maintenance staff.
What exactly did Liu say?
His key line: "Sooner or later, couriers basically won't be needed — delivery will be done by robots."
He immediately added: "But I really don't want our 700,000 brothers to have no food and no work."
This means → JD.com's chairman publicly quantified the scale of automation displacement for the first time — 700,000 people, not a vague "partial workforce adjustment."
How does JD.com plan to absorb the impact?
JD.com has signed agreements with 120 schools to retrain couriers in robot maintenance and repair.
Liu's logic is straightforward: robots are machines, and "they will always break down at some point" — fixing them creates new jobs.
In plain terms = the people who deliver packages stop delivering and start repairing the robots that deliver packages. Whether this works depends on training quality.
How far along is robot delivery?
Multiple major Chinese cities already have robot delivery firms in pilot or early commercial stages, though Liu gave no specific timeline.
Barclays analyst Ross Sandler wrote this month that autonomous last-mile delivery could reach critical scale around 2030.
He estimated U.S. per-delivery costs could drop from $8–$10 today to roughly $1 — cost is the core driver.
Why is this especially sensitive in China?
China's gig workforce is projected to reach 320 million this year — roughly 40% of urban employment.
Youth unemployment remains elevated, putting a spotlight on the dual squeeze of robotics and AI on blue-collar jobs.
This reflects something larger: Liu's statement pushes the employment-displacement question from industry forecasting into voluntary corporate disclosure — a first for China's e-commerce logistics sector.
What is the real test here?
One core variable: whether retraining can genuinely absorb the job losses.
120 schools, 700,000 workers, a leap from "delivering parcels" to "repairing robots" — the scale and the skill gap are both enormous.
In plain terms = Liu drew a path: courier → technician. The path is on paper. Whether anyone can walk it is a different question.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.