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Self checkouts have not replaced cashiers at grocery stores. You still need a worker to monitor them and you still need cashiers for orders bigger 20 items, which takes twice as long at the self-check.
Self check has actually made things better, because there's only so much space at the front of the store & they eliminate the need for multiple express lanes which there's not room for anyway.
The cashier at a fast food restaurant typically has other duties. You are a "team member" when you work fast food, you don't just stand at your station all day. Good workers learn all the stations, or if it's a bigger store, you learn the front half of the house or the back end of the house first, then both.
I've actually worked fast food and know how it works. At worst this will eliminate 1-2 pt jobs at each store AT MOST, possibly eliminate none. The people who only or mostly do cashiering are typically the most useless workers on the shortest schedules anyway... it was usually the job given to the under 18's who had limited hours and so had no time to be trained up on much else. The real job elimination in fast food happened years ago when the kitchens became pre-fab warming units. That eliminated all the cooks. The way the equipment is and the way the food comes pre-fabricated, there is no need for more than about 12-14 workers in the store at any one time, and that's for a big store. Most of the ones I worked for had 8-10 at any one time. Extra people beyond that would just get in the way.
Depends on the grocery store. Self checkouts in many grocery stores on the East Coast will have 4-10 self checkout registers with 1 maybe 2 people monitoring them. You certainly don't need anyone when you have over 20 items. You move your bag and you can remove it after it registers the weight of the last item scanned.
Again, your fast food experience doesn't agree with a lot of what I'm seeing up and down the East Coast. Was just at a McDonald's last week and there were 3 employees working. This was on an Interstate and they had a long line of customers waiting for orders and waiting to place orders.
I have also worked at McDonald's and several other fast food restaurants over the years. I can only think of one place that would ever have 14 people working. That location was crazy busy. Self service will absolutely replace some workers. It already has where they've installed these.
But so what? At a point in the past, the expense of a kiosk + maintenance outweighed the expense of the worker. But as worker wages increases, there is a point where the worker expense exceeds the cost of the kiosk. That's when a business decides - do I get the kiosk so I keep more of the takings as profit instead of paying wages. An increase in minimum wage to some random predetermined level speeds up reaching that point. The 2011 and 2013 dates are red herrings. Any increase in minimum wage pushes the business closer to the point of crossover.
Sedan chair carriers in Shanghai. When car machines were invented they were far too expensive for someone to use in a customer-transporting business. At a point tho, mass production of cars brought down the cost where it became possible for a person (taxi driver) to buy a car and pick up the sedan chair customers and actually make a profit. Instead of two people carrying the customer, you now only needed one person driving them with a machine. It would have occurred even quicker if after the cars were invented the sedan chair carriers got a doubling of their wage one year.
Instead of four people being paid $15 an hour with benefits, why not have four machines serving customers running with maintenance costs at about $5 hr (or whatever it is).
Some jobs require a certain level of human element in service. But at most fast food joints the service is diabolical, the orders often wrong, the surly servers indifferent to the customers.
Not a good sign, it looks like there will be fewer McDonalds jobs in the future.
The push for a $15 starter wage has negatively impacted the career prospects of employees who were just getting started in the workforce while extinguishing the businesses that employed them.
That has nothing to do with minimum wage . It IS part of why less people will be needed for jobs in general in the future , when this world is already too overpopulated NOW .
I was just watching this thing on how pizza places have used and will be using more drones in the future to deliver pizza and other things that need to be delivered . I am sure it will have to be nipped and tucked here and there but eventually yes . That will knock out alot of jobs as well .
As far as the minimum wage - sooner or later you have to pay people a living wage. This is why so many are on assistance ,not laziness like alot of people think .
But so what? At a point in the past, the expense of a kiosk + maintenance outweighed the expense of the worker.
When was that? Mechanization and automation have been replacing workers and displacing jobs worldwide for centuries. Some jobs just aren't going to come back.
It isn't going to stop, unless you think Trump should outlaw layoffs and threaten to withhold federal contracts from any company that implements automation.
I don't have a discussion on minimum wage, but these automation systems have nothing to do with whatever the minimum wage is. It's a case of getting the technology available more than anything else. If it were available 20 years ago, we'd have had this discussion then. The whole minimum wage argument merely gives them the cover to do what they would have done anyway.
Yep, it's fear mongering. There is a convenience store chain where self serve kiosks is part of their business model.
But so what? At a point in the past, the expense of a kiosk + maintenance outweighed the expense of the worker. But as worker wages increases, there is a point where the worker expense exceeds the cost of the kiosk. That's when a business decides - do I get the kiosk so I keep more of the takings as profit instead of paying wages. An increase in minimum wage to some random predetermined level speeds up reaching that point. The 2011 and 2013 dates are red herrings. Any increase in minimum wage pushes the business closer to the point of crossover.
Sedan chair carriers in Shanghai. When car machines were invented they were far too expensive for someone to use in a customer-transporting business. At a point tho, mass production of cars brought down the cost where it became possible for a person (taxi driver) to buy a car and pick up the sedan chair customers and actually make a profit. Instead of two people carrying the customer, you now only needed one person driving them with a machine. It would have occurred even quicker if after the cars were invented the sedan chair carriers got a doubling of their wage one year.
Instead of four people being paid $15 an hour with benefits, why not have four machines serving customers running with maintenance costs at about $5 hr (or whatever it is).
Some jobs require a certain level of human element in service. But at most fast food joints the service is diabolical, the orders often wrong, the surly servers indifferent to the customers.
But these machines still need to be maintained and repair.
Who is going to fix them? Upgrade them?
What if the machines don't work then what?
What if the customer does not know how to use it?
Who will help them?
I am lazy doing a self check out i rather have a human do it for me.
Invention doesn't equal adaptation. Newer doesn't always equal better. Sure many new technologies are great, but others serve little or no purpose in our lives. Consider the low adaptation of smartwatches (especially the Apple smartwatch) Google Glass, and modular smartphones, we know that IT people come up with gadget concepts for job security first and customer satisfaction second.
I hate it too, I'm 54 and hate self-checkout scanners ("Unrecognized item on belt...please wait for help") and I will never vote for any politician who threatens to take our full-serve gas stations away here in NJ. But it doesn't matter, this IS the future. Of course first generation and even second and third generation technology are going to be flawed, but wait a few years, it is coming. I don't think a "gadget" such as a watch can be compared with a global change such as technological advances in manufacturing and soon service and transportation jobs. Again, I do not think young people mind using this stuff nearly to the degree we do, they don't want to interact with people for every transaction.
In 10 or 15 years, it'll be an actual robot that looks and responds like a person taking your restaurant order, and probably taking your temp in the hospital too.
I don't know what we (again global we, not just the U.S.) are going to do for jobs...the problem is I don't think policy makers or experts know what we're going to do to replace these jobs down the road, either.
You are falling for the corporate America lines of bs put out by the .01 percenters that are business owners, hedge fund guys, movers and shakers of the stock market, etc. Companies automate as much as they can no matter what the minimum wage is.
WalMart put in self-checkout kiosks years ago in my state and the minimum wage has barely gone up in 15 years.
I believe when I researched it a few years ago just for kicks if you adjusted the minimum wage to match inflation the minimum wage should be around 12 dollars an hour at the federal level. A combo at Subway is like 9 dollars now which is a huge increase compared to 10 years ago. The minimum wage has not gone up that much in the past 10 years in most of the country.
I think the wage issue is only a symptom of a bigger problem. What is the problem is not why that the minimum wage should be a certain amount (you said $12/hr), but why inflation has gone up so much and why a combo at Subway now costs about $9 when it used to be about $5 or $6.
I hate it too, I'm 54 and hate self-checkout scanners ("Unrecognized item on belt...please wait for help") and I will never vote for any politician who threatens to take our full-serve gas stations away here in NJ. But it doesn't matter, this IS the future. Of course first generation and even second and third generation technology are going to be flawed, but wait a few years, it is coming. I don't think a "gadget" such as a watch can be compared with a global change such as technological advances in manufacturing and soon service and transportation jobs. Again, I do not think young people mind using this stuff nearly to the degree we do, they don't want to interact with people for every transaction.
In 10 or 15 years, it'll be an actual robot that looks and responds like a person taking your restaurant order, and probably taking your temp in the hospital too.
I don't know what we (again global we, not just the U.S.) are going to do for jobs...the problem is I don't think policy makers or experts know what we're going to do to replace these jobs down the road, either.
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If more robots and machines are created
Yes fewer jobs but even new jobs
Writing manuels for manufacture how to operate a robot for newbies
Mcdonald Repair tech - think of it going to various mcdonalds site and repairing broken robots and kiosk machines.
Doing software updates or replacing hardware because yeah lets be honest at some point s h i t breaks
Especially technology.
Robot programmers and engineers because someone has to not just design it but program it
Increase in kiosk and robot help desk techs.
Robot Designer - if robots and machines are the new thing someone will be designing new robots and always make improvement that will help businesses.
I dont think anyone is noticing here but the only thing being automated are cash register jobs.
Some has to still clean the bathroom cook the food clean the floor supervise machines other employees etc.
Last edited by CosmoStars; 11-30-2016 at 01:19 PM..
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) and I will never vote for any politician who threatens to take our full-serve gas stations away here in NJ. But it doesn't matter, this IS the future. Of course first generation and even second and third generation technology are going to be flawed, but wait a few years, it is coming. I don't think a "gadget" such as a watch can be compared with a global change such as technological advances in manufacturing and soon service and transportation jobs. Again, I do not think young people mind using this stuff nearly to the degree we do, they don't want to interact with people for every transaction.
