Meet the "Big Mac ATM" That Will Replace All Of Your $15 Per Hour Fast Food Workers

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

4 hours ago, Zagadka said:

A few years ago, a lot of grocery stores introduced self-service checkout. Lasted for about a year before they started to disappear. Can't replace a human.

just about every grocery store in Ohio has these still. i've even used them at Home Depot.

[Billus]

The only way to combat the rise of the machines is by creating competition which is enabled by a Capitalist/Neo-liberal ideology. By that, I simply mean encouraging small businesses competing with the multinationals and consumers "voting" with their wallets. Of course you can argue that it can't be done but it is up to the individual to make their own luck.

 

Besides the point, new industries continue to pop up creating new jobs in different fields, fields that have never been thought off. Naturally however, the era of a non-skilled workforce may come to an end and it is the Governments role to make education a priority to its citizens. Any Government that neglects education will inevitably be its downfall.

[PGHammer]

4 hours ago, Billus said:

The only way to combat the rise of the machines is by creating competition which is enabled by a Capitalist/Neo-liberal ideology. By that, I simply mean encouraging small businesses competing with the multinationals and consumers "voting" with their wallets. Of course you can argue that it can't be done but it is up to the individual to make their own luck.

 

Besides the point, new industries continue to pop up creating new jobs in different fields, fields that have never been thought off. Naturally however, the era of a non-skilled workforce may come to an end and it is the Governments role to make education a priority to its citizens. Any Government that neglects education will inevitably be its downfall.

You mean neo-liberalist - NOT capitalist; remember, I've already mentioned smaller (as in single-state or maybe two and three-state chains already adopting kiosks) - in  fact, I'm expecting 7-Eleven and Wawa to follow suit (along with their competition).

5 hours ago, Jason S. said:

just about every grocery store in Ohio has these still. i've even used them at Home Depot.

Not surprised one iota at Home Depot; I've seen them at Home Depot (and Lowe's) here in Maryland.

[DocM]

The largest hypermarkets around Detroit are the Mejer stores, a family-owned Great Lakes powerhouse that's giving Walmart and Target fits.  They run 25-30% self-service checkouts, and they have a lot of checkouts because the stores avetage 200,000 to 250,000 sq. ft though some are larger.  Concepts for their upcoming stores,

 

Top: grocery, deli and lunches on the left; electronics, toys, home center & gardening on the right, tons of stuff between, and checkouts between the towers. 

 

Edited January 27, 2017 by DocM

[TheReaperMan]

8 hours ago, DocM said:

In our parts 1/4 to 1/2 of checkouts are self-service, and people use them because they're faster for most orders. Checkout persons get distracted by chatty customers, supervisors or coworkers asking about breaks, actually taking breaks or other trivia and they're always open. 1 supervising human for every 6-8 checkout terminals to handle issues like items which won't scan.

 

I hear Amazon is experimenting with brick & mortar grocery stores where there are no checkouts called Amazon Go; their employees being the guinea pigs. Items are scanned by the cart and you bag items as you shop. You can review the list, and then you just walk out. Items are billed to your Amazon account when you leave.

 

https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011

Similar thing happens here in the uk. If you shop at waitrose and some Tesco stores you can use a hand scanner and walk round the store scanning your shopping and then bagging it as you go along. you then scan at the till and pay. no human interaction with staff need at all.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

On 1/26/2017 at 8:45 AM, Jason S. said:

i was going to mention Wendys as i read about this last year. i see that it's already mentioned.

 

i've used these machines at a local store before. it is quite a small rollout, but there's no need to interact with anyone. the person behind the counter simply makes the food you order as it pops up on their screen.

 

people simply do not understand what a higher minimum wage means. no one is telling them either. all they see is dollar signs and more money, but the ramifications are that people get laid off. this already happened at Walmart's HQ last year. they raised wages for everyone, but then the managers complained, then their managers complained... and then they had to lay off like 2000 people.

 

here's a simply example - say the burger flipper makes $15/hr and the Manager only makes $18/hr. wouldnt the manager now want more money too? how does a manager, w/ all their responsibilities, only make $3/hr more than the guy stuffing fries? Now the managers want more to compensate, but the location cant afford it b/c their profit margin is so slim. well, then everyone thinks that the cost will just be passed on to the consumers w/ higher menu prices. well, no, b/c that brings up two issues. 1. consumers will consume less if the prices rise too much 2. fast food prices are already set to the lowest common denominator, the people making minimum wage.

 

this goes beyond just fast food, of course. this also impacts those working at walmart. if walmart has to raise prices, then suddenly these people cant afford their products again. companies arent just going to swallow the cost. they arent just going to dip into their profits to compensate.

I'm not a fan of minimum wage laws because I'm not a fan of price floors and I do agree that they have cascading effects throughout the market that counteract their intended purpose. I mention this as you'll likely be a bit surprised by my viewpoint here (and so would my wife if she ever read this)... I'll need to explain my point fully though, sorry for the length.

 

Labor is just another component in the marketplace and will be priced with and used accordingly. So, if you drive up  the cost of labor with an artificial price floor you'll get two realities. One, lower employment for certain groups as a result of their labor no being valuable at the new price point. For instance, a higher minimum wage would decrease the value of hiring a recently graduated High Schooler over the more qualified candidate readily available. There is a readily available candidate with higher qualifications (such as employment experience) due to the reality that the labor cost hasn't moved up on its own due to a supply (labor) side scarcity. As a result, the recent grad is unable to price him or herself low enough to make them attractive enough to get into the market. You could make the argument that we see this impact now with more people attempting to raise families on jobs such as McDonalds which could be argued are "launchpad" jobs and not "career" jobs. In fact, I've made this arguments.

 

What is driving my shift on this issue? Technology and Automation...

 

We now have a viable substitution for human labor in a wide swatch of fields and disciplines and we're really just now starting to see the impact of this change that started in the 80s, but has grown exponentially. In the Industrial Revolution machinery increased productivity, but seldom fully replaced the worker. As a result, you had a constant demand for human labor that was extremely unique. As a result, you paid workers better because they, as a commodity, were without substitute. Now, we're witnessing technology working like an Emerald Ash Borer through the labor market and you see this reflected in the economy as well. STEM jobs are paid extremely well largely due to their ability to drive cost savings for business via technology. The cost savings come at the expense of labor (since labor are always your highest cost).

 

Labor is being forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel as they are increasingly competing against a new competitor they can never hope to match...

 

Honestly, we need to leap frog the minimum wage debate entirely and start realistically rethinking society based on our present and future realities. Increasingly, few people will be able to work and wealth will increasingly move to the top (as the guy who owns the machine will make all the money from said machine and doesn't have to share any with the machine...). If we ignore this we'll have increasing levels of societal and civil unrest...

 

Just in the next few years we're expecting the following:

- Self Driving transport trucks eliminating skilled jobs in the trucking sector

- Online education is in the works reducing the need for academic staff

- Self driving vehicles reducing the need for taxi drivers among other things...

 

Our economy is now a "service" economy as it can't create high skilled jobs fast enough to replace the high skilled jobs it is shaving off... We can't allow a future where workers are treated entirely like any other commodity. Otherwise, we'd have to walk back every form of labor rights we have to even begin to hope to slow the technical curve down.

[SierraSonic]

All this without even the extra pay coming, it's almost like technology was going to replace these positions anyway.

[DocM]

The union's pushing $15/hr are accelerating the changeover; mostly SEIU and UAW.

[Mockingbird]

Another reason that college should be free.

 

Pretty soon, it might be almost impossible to get jobs without a college degree.

[Hum]

Great idea !

 

No more rude order takers.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

17 hours ago, illegaloperation said:

Another reason that college should be free.

 

Pretty soon, it might be almost impossible to get jobs without a college degree.

i'd have to disagree w/ that. a college education is something to be earned, not given. like other economic factors, if nearly everyone has a college degree, then it's not worth as much to an employer. next, then, people would have to compete in the job market by obtaining a Master's Degree, or two bachelor degrees. then people would be clamoring for free post-bachelors education and so on.

 

as it is today, in the US at least, it's easy enough to get student loans to go to college. take on debt to earn a college education that still holds value.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

The Job and Wage Implications of State Minimum Wage Increases in 2017 and Beyond

 

• In isolation, the minimum wage increases in 2017 will cost 383,000 jobs;
• The entire minimum wage increases currently phasing-in will cost over 2.6 million jobs; and
• Each job lost only leads to an extra $6,900 in total wage earnings across all workers.

 

American Action Forum

[ensiform]

While they wouldn't be the low-skilled labors anymore technically, many of these folks could go to a specialized tech school and get the training needed for maintaining and repairing the new kiosk machines thus making oneself better off and more skilled.  Of course one would need to make offers that they can go by the cheap or free if they worked in the industry.

[hagjohn]

Yeah, a food ATM is the answer.... 

[nekrosoft13]

On 1/26/2017 at 9:00 AM, wakjak said:

And where's the proof for this?

its called history, with minimum wage, everything else increases, its a never ending cycle.

[tmorris1]

On 1/26/2017 at 8:00 AM, PsYcHoKiLLa said:

Obviously that's going to deliver fine and nutritious food... or maybe just cold plastic, fatfilled garbage, you might as well just rummage around in the trash for your meal.

 

'Murca's culinary delights continue to amaze and excite!

 

Just thought I would add to your moronic explanation of economics, you do realise if you pay workers less or get rid of them altogether then you lose taxes and you also lose money being spent by that person? Multiply that by thousands or millions of workers and your economy goes down the plughole but, as long as the corporations are making money, who cares....right?

People making minimum wage do not pay any tax in the end.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

2 minutes ago, tmorris1 said:

People making minimum wage do not pay any tax in the end.

sure they do. the Federal minimum requirement for paying income tax is like $12,500/yr

[macoman]

On 1/26/2017 at 9:33 AM, epk said:

Let's face it, all jobs will be replaced with machines sooner or later.

I agreed, my support tech job will be one day be replaced by a robot or AI machine.

[The Rev]

I'm not going to eat a burger made by a machine...  I mean, seriously, how long has that meat been in there? :-p
No really...  I wouldn't trust McDonalds "vendors" restocking these things reliably enough to avoid food spoilage.  

[LUTZIFER]

I've been to lots of MacDonalds that have those ordering touchscreens and there's been no decrease in employees.

People still need to make the food, serve the food, and do cleanup.

All the machines did was speed up the ordering process.

[DocM]

3 hours ago, The Rev said:

I'm not going to eat a burger made by a machine...  I mean, seriously, how long has that meat been in there? :-p
No really...  I wouldn't trust McDonalds "vendors" restocking these things reliably enough to avoid food spoilage.  

Irradiate it. Kills E. Coli and Salmonella.

[The Rev]

12 hours ago, DocM said:

Irradiate it. Kills E. Coli and Salmonella.

Yeah.... don't trust that either.  ;-)

[Mando]

On 1/26/2017 at 2:14 PM, Jason S. said:

were you replying to my moronic explanation? i'd say that your explanation only strengthens mine... this is the exact outcome of raising the minimum wage to $15/hr

 

btw, i used one of these ordering kiosks in england when i visited family last august. what's to say they wont come to Scotland if they havent already?

the koisks are already in Mcds up here (autopay touchscreens), tbh i dont mind using them, at least it doesnt ask me every morning if i want a bag with my large latte...im sure the goons in the drive thru do it on purpose to see peoples faces.

 

Or do you want milk and/or sugar...what??? more milk for my milky coffee!! 

 

RE: the cooking vending machine, its probably cleaner and healthier zapping it in that device than having the usual cream of the McDs crop throwing your burger together  knowing a few ex-macdonalds employees, this is no more risky than a traditional restaurant, you all realise McDs burgers are frozen, then flash heated right? I rate it no higher than Rustlers burgers in a ping! 

[DocM]

3 hours ago, The Rev said:

Yeah.... don't trust that either.  ;-)

Works. Been in use since after WW-2.

 

 

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

How the Coming Wave of Job Automation Will Affect You