--- title: "Factory Paying Human Worker to Watch Robot Worker All Day" description: "A manufacturing plant in South Carolina is now staffing \"agility contractors\" to sit around and watch robots toil." date: "2026-03-17" modified: "2026-03-17" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins" url: "https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/robot-worker-factory-digit" categories: - "Finance" - "Future Society" - "Robotics" - "Robots and Machines" --- # Factory Paying Human Worker to Watch Robot Worker All Day ![A man in a black suit and glasses is sitting on a chair with his arms crossed and head tilted to the side, appearing to be asleep. Behind him is an orange circle on a blue background. In the foreground, a robot wearing a yellow construction helmet is holding and interacting with a tablet or device. The robot is slightly blurred.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images* One of the newest roles emerging in the fast-growing robotics sector isn't in engineering or software: it's babysitting. New reporting [by the *Wall Street Journal*]() documented the deployment of Digit, a humanoid robot, to a factory assembly line in South Carolina. For eight hours each day, the bipedal bot toils at the Schaeffler plant in Cheraw, SC, where — under the watchful eyes of a human "Agility contractor" — it operates a stamping press. For now, the robot operates from within a plexiglass enclosure, a cage in which it's observed by its fleshbag supervisor. Digit, the *WSJ* explains, can't detect human beings in its environment just yet, requiring it to be penned off due to [machine-guarding regulations](). That's expected to change by the end of the year, meaning factory workers could soon be toe-to-toe with humanoid robots on the assembly line. "We've identified a whole host of use cases that we would like humanoid robots to do," Courtney Baines, an advanced production technology engineer at Schaeffler told the *WSJ*. What any of that means for human workers remains to be seen. Agility, the company behind Digit, told the paper that the robots currently pan out to between $10 to $25 an hour, depending on how the factory decides to deploy them. Going forward, Agility's co-founder, Damion Shelton, said the goal is to hit around $2 to $3 an hour. Entry-level jobs at the Cheraw plant begin at $20 an hour — and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which production solution a for-profit entity would choose if humanoid robots ever become cheap enough to compete. "Efficiency is the name of the game and it's relentless," Doug Thompson, a 14-year manufacturing worker at the Schaeffler plant told the *WSJ*. "It's not going to stop." That news comes on the wings of a handful of successful manufacturing trials featuring humanoid robots. Earlier this month, it was revealed that the Chinese company Xiami had successfully deployed [two humanoid robots]() at its electric vehicle plant in Beijing. Like Digit, those bots were contained in a plexiglass enclosure — but given the speed at which the robotics industry is moving, don't be shocked if that wall comes down sooner rather than later. **More on robots:** *[This Video of a Humanoid Robot Playing Perfect Tennis Is Extremely Impressive]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()