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I guess they can thank the ones pushing for $15 minimums for fast food jobs that sped up this process. It would have happened eventually but non this fast. I am sure all major fast food chains are watching this and getting ready to do the same thing.
I think that's a little dramatic. Most parts of the country have a much lower minimum wage than $15 an hour. And labor is only about 21-23% of the CGS in a fast food restaurant so the impact on the bottom line of a minimum wage increase is not as dire as some people would make it out to be.
Over time a large number of our jobs will be automated, there's no stopping it or turning it back. Probably the only thing we can do is to make sure that we don't give robots the ability to make other robots or they will kill us and take over the world.
Hmmm...
Robotic food handling from raw to cooked to the customer's mouth in one unbroken line. What could go wrong?
Even fast fry cooks know about contamination. They wear gloves or wash their hands all the time, and keep the basics clean. Its standard practice these days after a couple of chains got slammed with massive lawsuits in the recent past.
I doubt a robot is gonna keep it's mechanicals clean. Or the grill, or the spatula tool, or anything else. So what is going to be needed? A guy whose job is to clean the robot? When he could be doing the same job?
It probably all sounded real good on paper, but in the real world there are always lots of overlooked problems for robotics. They're overlooked because humans take care of them without thinking all that much about them. People who work in food service clean things so routinely it is taken for granted.
I can think of lots of other things a machine would need to know like that. Engineers aren't fast food workers, so they don't know what they don't know. Fast food workers all learn what to avoid, what to keep separate, what has to go where when, and a big bunch of small fast decisions that must be made every minute on the job.
All I can say is I'm not going to be one of their guinea pigs. No thanks!
Robotics are swell for some assembly jobs, but fast food service is not one of them in my mind. I've worked around a couple, and I know that they are only as good as their programming. One little oversight, or a couple of lines of code that missed being fixed could cause a lot of problems in a small hot area where there's a lot of hot grease and lots of small loose edible parts.
I have to admit, though, that it might be very interesting to watch a robot dump a dripping wet head of lettuce into a hot deep fat fryer. As long as there were no humans around when it happened.
banjomike, you are talking from an old world perspective. Technology is poised to moved well past what you have typed here. Look up machine learning. Then go back and reread what you have written here through that lens.
There will undoubtedly be a few humans needed here and there, but the vast majority of the workforce will be long gone.
I guess they can thank the ones pushing for $15 minimums for fast food jobs that sped up this process. It would have happened eventually but non this fast. I am sure all major fast food chains are watching this and getting ready to do the same thing.
Great, so the choices were to try to make it on un-survivable wages or else get fired. I mean, they are both such great options. It must feel good to gloat over the fate of people in these jobs.
Great, so the choices were to try to make it on un-survivable wages or else get fired. I mean, they are both such great options. It must feel good to gloat over the fate of people in these jobs.
3rd choice: Add education and training to obtain better jobs.
BS. $15 minimum wage isn't even the law in any state so how could it be a game changer? Why is self-checkout automation being widely adopted in red states where no one is "fighting for 15" and its not the law in any state in the US?
The premise is nonsense. $15 minimum wage is not the law in any state so it cannot possibly be the reason for the widespread adoption of self-checkout automation, which has been taking place long before any fight for 15 campaign
The state of California is raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2022. A little over 4 years. That gives companies enough time to automate before they have to pay that amount. And then the ripple effect of cheaper automation spreading throughout the country.
So yes a game changer.
And who besides you is talking about supermarket self checkout? Is that the only automation you are aware of?
Whole restaurants being totally automated is the plan. And $15 gives the plan financial sense.
Corps are automating ahead of $15 when they know it passed. In NY 12/31/18 its $15, and corps are automating now to be ready to avoid paying $15 to those doing McJobs.
That's a crock. They are moving to automation because its the next logical step. They're talking about technology and how soon they can get it up and running ahead of their competition to gain an edge in the market. These companies aren't even talking about minimum wage. It's not even on their radar. They've already moved past it because they know it's a moot point.
You want so badly to blame the push for minimum wage because it suits your political narrative, but the reality is it is completely superfluous to the conversation.
Great, so the choices were to try to make it on un-survivable wages or else get fired. I mean, they are both such great options. It must feel good to gloat over the fate of people in these jobs.
These are transitional jobs for 5 million people. They can work their way into management in fast food if they have goals for the future. Or go to school and get into a better industry.
Corps are automating ahead of $15 when they know it passed. In NY 12/31/18 its $15, and corps are automating now to be ready to avoid paying $15 to those doing McJobs.
Again, I don't see anything wrong with $15 minimum in extremely high cost of living states like CA and NY. But self-checkout is being widely adopted in stores even in red states where minimum wage is very low. So to blame it on the fight for 15 campaign is nonsense.
Explain to me why self-checkout is common in stores in Texas where the minimum wage is still $7.25.
The state of California is raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2022. A little over 4 years. That gives companies enough time to automate before they have to pay that amount. And then the ripple effect of cheaper automation spreading throughout the country.
So yes a game changer.
And who besides you is talking about supermarket self checkout? Is that the only automation you are aware of?
Whole restaurants being totally automated is the plan. And $15 gives the plan financial sense.
Restaurants can even save more.
Old model might have 5 wait staff at $2.17, 5 cleaning crew at MW. So at 7.25, cleaning crew was >75% of cost. That 75% went bye-bye when tablets freed wait staff time to clean tables.
3rd choice: Add education and training to obtain better jobs.
And when those jobs, too, fall to AI and machine learning, then what?
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