AI may have arrived but new blue-collar jobs may survive its rise

At a Rolls Royce parts plant with "virtually no manual operations," human workers continually refine automation

It’s hiring day at Rolls Royce’s jet-engine plant near Petersburg, Virginia. Twelve candidates are divided into three teams and given the task of assembling a box. Twelve Rolls Royce employees stand around them, one assigned to each candidate, taking notes. 

The box is a prop, and the test has nothing to do with programming or repairing the robots that make engine parts here. It’s about collaborative problem solving.

“We are looking at what they say, we are looking at what they do, we are looking at the body language of how they are interacting,” says Lorin Sodell, the plant manager.

For all the