"Self check-out" is yet another way of shifting overhead to you, the (alleged) customer. Fewer employees means smaller payroll, fewer benefits, etc. But what's in this for me??
Lower prices than if you also paid for more employees to obtain the same goods. They're making these investments in capital goods because the government keeps raising the price of labor.
Despite the lower cost-of-goods-sold, you never see these places reducing their prices.
That's because the government generates debt which is the seed of monetary creation in our FRS.
If you see prices simply maintaining in the current inflationary environment you can thank either reduced demand, or cost cutting by the sellers.
The natural order is for prices to decrease as increases in productivity continually raise the supply of goods. We notice it most obviously in the field of electronics because the productivity growth is more rapid than the monetary creation.
There aren't a whole lot of productivity gains to be obtained in the making of candy bars after decades, and so they more steadily reflect inflation's effects.
And when these corporate behemoths fire their check-out personnel, you/me then get the privilege of propping up many of the displaced workers with government handouts.
It's ignorant to blame companies responding to consumer demand for the outcome of legislation that prices the lowest value workers out of legal employment.
CVS touts how quickly you can get in and out of their stores, with the obvious comparison being the wait times people have come to expect at stores like Walmart. Now compare the prices at those locations and tell me which company is actually providing you privilege of 'propping up' their workers.
Screw all of these big-box places. And for those of you who "like" the automation, be careful what you ask for.....you too could be eligible for, um, er, outplacement.
Oh, how I wish they hadn't invented the combine. Maybe we could ALL still be farmhands. Weren't things nicer when better than 90% of the country was employed on farms and didn't have labor available to create computers, websites, and various and sundry platforms for Luddites to raise their battle cry against the progress they take part in?
My job is in IT. My role is to automate things. I spent this morning writing a 4 page set of instructions for a staff member to follow every morning until I can get the process automated. No one benefits by wasting her time doing a series of clicks over and over. As soon as I can automate that she can do something more useful.
We should welcome every labor saving creation because the reality is they mean we have more time - for the creation of more goods and services, or for our own leisure.
I've done the farmhand bit. My beans are now in the shade.
