"It's a fight for talent…It's like'Game of Thrones' out there," Erik Caldwell, chief operating officer for supply chain in the Americas and Asia Pacific at XPO Logistics Inc., XPO 2.83% said at an industry conference earlier this year, discussing the company's use of robots to fulfill online orders. The use of robotics and other automation technology in industrial operations is growing, although the vast majority of warehouse work remains largely manual. About 16.5% of organizations across several industries including warehousing are now using commercial service robots, and 21.5% have them in pilot programs, according to a 2018 survey of 600 respondents by research firm IDC. The holiday shopping season highlights a warehouse-worker squeeze that is driving more logistics operators to embrace automation, as the growth of online commerce pushes more retail sales from storefronts to distribution centers. Online fulfillment centers--where companies like Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.94% pick, pack and ship consumer orders--require two to three times as many workers as traditional warehouses.