The real question is whether the required number of employees is off too, which if the numbers are from years ago and the theory that automation is increasing is true then it would be, and then as you say, how that plays out in terms of labor per unit.
You’re absolutely right, I was being unrealistically conservative. In reality that many workers would almost certainly unionize and average labor costs could easily be $250-$300 a day or more.
Napkin math if you were to move 500k workers to the US and paid them $100 a day instead of $5 a day it would cost you $17B a year.
Would be interesting to see how labor per unit is trending to determine if manufacturing is actually getting more automated and at what rate.