Since they put the numbers in relation to manufacturing workers they surly only count robots used for manufacturing, not Roombas.
But then the problems start: Say you have two robot arms, one to hold a part up, the other to weld, are those two arms two robots or one? Is a CNC machine a robot? And so on.
Those differences don’t matter so much if they managed to get their definition of robot somewhat right (the amount of CNC machines is probably highly correlated with the number of [other?] robots, so it doesn’t really matter whether CNC machines are included or not) and if they counted consistently. You probably shouldn’t read too much into the worker:robot ratio. (Oh look, all Japan needs is a 35-fold increase in the number of robots, then they won’t need any workers anymore …)
But then the problems start: Say you have two robot arms, one to hold a part up, the other to weld, are those two arms two robots or one? Is a CNC machine a robot? And so on.
Those differences don’t matter so much if they managed to get their definition of robot somewhat right (the amount of CNC machines is probably highly correlated with the number of [other?] robots, so it doesn’t really matter whether CNC machines are included or not) and if they counted consistently. You probably shouldn’t read too much into the worker:robot ratio. (Oh look, all Japan needs is a 35-fold increase in the number of robots, then they won’t need any workers anymore …)