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This year, Walmart (WMT) plans an aggressive expansion of technology that will automate a range of low-level tasks within its fleet of U.S. stores, freeing up its associates to do more specialized work.
The plan is to roll out 1,500 new autonomous floor cleaners, called the "Auto-C," 300 additional shelf scanners dubbed the "Auto-S.” In addition, 1,200 more FAST Unloaders will automatically scan and sort items from trucks, and 900 more pickup towers are expected to retrieve customers’ online orders.
It means that shoppers might soon encounter robots gliding up and down the retailer’s aisles, scanning for inventory, maneuvering around shelves, and scrubbing the store's expansive floor space.
I don’t think most of those will result in losing jobs, just different jobs. Have you been to a Walmart lately? Tons of employees running around, perhaps more than in the past. The only difference is now they are personal shoppers instead of cashiers.
Welp, looks like companies rather have robots do jobs than give into $15 minimal wage hikes, as predicted.
Uh-huh.
The centuries-long trend of mechanism in all its permutations continues. Yet you attribute this immediate snapshot in history as not part of that overarching of ... well, of the entire Western world from the Industrial Revolution onward, but a sudden reaction to current policies.
I wonder if you were one of those (woefully wrong) individuals who proclaimed that the rise in ATMs would decrease bank employment? That didn't happen. Or perhaps that increased use of surveillance cameras would result in fewer law enforcement jobs? That was completely wrong, too. The examples are endless.
In reality, it doesn't look like Walmart is doing this in reaction to what aggrieves you politically. They're just doing what industry has been doing for hundreds of years.
What is predictable is the silly hand-wringing, from the Luddites to those trying to spin it as a consequence of policies they don't like. I wonder how these people manage to explain - in their own excuse-making minds - how this country once employed 50% of its populace in agriculture and now employs a mere 2%, yet 48% percent of the country isn't standing around without work complaining that the tractor and combine replaced the plow and hoe?
They have their Larry Kudlow sound-bites, but unfortunately for them, they don't have reality on their side: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25434
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mizzourah2006
I don’t think most of those will result in losing jobs, just different jobs. Have you been to a Walmart lately? Tons of employees running around, perhaps more than in the past. The only difference is now they are personal shoppers instead of cashiers.
Not around here, but then we only have a "Neighborhood Market." I did notice that they have no more cashiers, you can only pay using the self-checks.
Not around here, but then we only have a "Neighborhood Market." I did notice that they have no more cashiers, you can only pay using the self-checks.
Where I'm at they have both, but the majority are now self checkout. But man, even at Neighborhood Markets around here you can't go down an aisle without a personal shopper filling an order for a pickup customer.
..........Welp, looks like companies rather have robots do jobs than give into $15 minimal wage hikes, as predicted.
That might have something to do with it, but the Walmart in Central Oregon has been paying close to $15 an hour for over a decade and hasn't had any problems with doing so.
I think it has more to do with the difficulty of getting anyone to do any work correctly, no matter what you pay them. Ask anyone who has to hire people about how difficult it is.
It's amazing that the higher ups at these companies say almost exactly the same thing as if they are taught by the same people on what to say. They say robots won't take away jobs but will work side by side with the employees for an enhanced working experience. They say robots will do the mundane, repetitive tasks that humans won't do (Jees how the hell did these tasks get done for hundred of years before robots appear?).
And I have noticed that the affected employees are never interviewed by the media. It's always the management touting how great the robots are.
You still have to employ people to build the robot.
You would have to be insane to think that hiking minimum wage to $15 an hour wouldn't have an impact.
That would be the Chinese and Indians.
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