Dulux, new era for decorating.

Dulux owner Akzo Nobel has warned of a «big scarcity» of painters and decorators in the UK, exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic, as the group backs a start-up developing a painting robot to ease the labour crunch. «Especially in the UK, we see a great scarcity of painters. We’re concerned,» said José Antonio Jiménez Lozano,managing director. « With Brexit, we have also seen a reduction of the people coming from some other European countries».

Triggered by a lack of workers in the industry, Akzo Nobel has expanded beyond producing paints to invest in tech that it hopes will address the shortage. The Dutch group has acquired a minority stake in French start-up Les Companions, which has developed a robot that can spray paint large surfaces through a mainly automated process. «I don’t think will because, at the end of the day, the painting and the decorating job is very,» said Jiménez. «There are a lot of obstacles» to making the robot practical on a building site, said one painting company owner during a demonstration at Akzo’s UK headquarters.

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