Confronted with an growing older inhabitants and labor shortages, Japanese companies are more and more counting on service robots to complement their workforce, according to Bloomberg.

Analysis agency Fuji Keizai tasks the nation’s service robotic market to almost triple by 2030, to ¥400 billion ($2.7 billion). Doubtlessly driving that development: The Recruit Works Institute tasks that the nation will face a labor shortfall of 11 million by 2040, whereas a government-backed institute estimates that just about 40% of the inhabitants can be 65 or older by 2065.

For example how robots are filling the hole, Bloomberg factors to the nation’s largest desk service restaurant chain, Skylark, which makes use of round 3,000 cat-eared robots to carry meals to tables. At one the chain’s Tokyo eating places, 71-year-old Yasuko Tagawa estimated that half her job now entails some type of robotic help.

At one level, Tagawa instructed a robotic, “Thanks on your exhausting work. I’ll be relying on you.”