Saturday, December 17, 2016

More Pay = Less Workers

It seems that higher promised minimum wages have changed the way things will work at businesses other than fast food restaurants with their automated order kiosks. I was in a large U.S. retailer recently, Walmart, and was a little taken aback when I saw this large orange monstrosity ling the front wall of the store.



It appears that now, instead of having the stockroom workers stock the shelves in a stockroom with items from orders placed online, they will now be stocking the pick-up boxes at the front of the store and customers will retrieve their items directly from the boxes. A computer console (near middle of the photo) is set up for the customer to evidently put in a code he receives online to unlock the box with his merchandise in it.

I imagine that should cut out at least several employees who used to go back into the stockroom to find the items for the customers and who were slower than molasses running uphill on a below zero day (IMO). Just keep raising that minimum wage for low-end go nowhere jobs and soon there will be nobody but robots working in our stores (and the technology for that is problem not that far off).

All the best,
Glenn B

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