5 ms·

The realistic reading is that it mainly just transfers money from profits to wages. Demand for minimum waged labor is very, very inelastic.

dehrmann 7y ago
Is it? In countries with higher minimum wages, McDonald's uses kiosks for ordering. I'm guessing, but it feels like 1/3 of fast food staff mans the registers.
- chasontherobot 7y ago
  Do you have a citation for this? Tokyo has a high minimum wage (and low enough unemployment that most employers have to pay more than minimum wage), but I've yet to see an automated kiosk here. Though in support of your point, when I went to Korea last year there was a large number of automated kiosks, and I know the minimum wage there is fairly high as well. So, Japan's lack of those kiosks may have to do with a preference towards cash/human interaction in the culture.
  - vsl 7y ago
    Isn’t Japan famous for manning a lot of jobs, culturally? Around here (Central Europe, Austria, Germany, Italy too IIRC) I don’t see non-kiosk McDonalds anymore, as they went through the kiosk upgrade in the past few years. Noticeably fewer employees.
    - cyphar 7y ago
      It takes a long time to develop and plan a rollout of those kinds of automated kiosks for large companies. They've clearly been planning such a rollout for many years. The fact it's coincided with a lot of discussion of minimum wage increases is either a complete coincidence or an example of correlation not implying causation -- mass layoffs usually result in discussions about labour laws. I would argue that the job losses to automation would've happened anyway without any discussion of wage increases -- kiosks are cheaper than even below-living-wage workers.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/edrensi/2018/07/11/mcdonalds-says-goodbye-cashiers-hello-kiosks/#7c10c3666f14 https://www.forbes.com/sites/edrensi/2018/07/11/mcdonalds-sa... Though I was specifically thinking Sweden.
  - tekknik 7y ago
    I haven't been to Japan in many years, but they had plenty of kiosks for ordering food from restaurants. You put in money, hit the button next to the pic of the food you want, it gives you a ticket and you take it to the cook.
- pytester 7y ago
  Automated kiosks for ordering aren't new - they date back about to the 1890s. They actually went out of fashion in the 1950s-60s when wages grew the fastest and died out entirely in 1991.

dehrmann 7y ago

Is it? In countries with higher minimum wages, McDonald's uses kiosks for ordering. I'm guessing, but it feels like 1/3 of fast food staff mans the registers.

chasontherobot 7y ago
Do you have a citation for this? Tokyo has a high minimum wage (and low enough unemployment that most employers have to pay more than minimum wage), but I've yet to see an automated kiosk here. Though in support of your point, when I went to Korea last year there was a large number of automated kiosks, and I know the minimum wage there is fairly high as well. So, Japan's lack of those kiosks may have to do with a preference towards cash/human interaction in the culture.
- vsl 7y ago
  Isn’t Japan famous for manning a lot of jobs, culturally? Around here (Central Europe, Austria, Germany, Italy too IIRC) I don’t see non-kiosk McDonalds anymore, as they went through the kiosk upgrade in the past few years. Noticeably fewer employees.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    It takes a long time to develop and plan a rollout of those kinds of automated kiosks for large companies. They've clearly been planning such a rollout for many years. The fact it's coincided with a lot of discussion of minimum wage increases is either a complete coincidence or an example of correlation not implying causation -- mass layoffs usually result in discussions about labour laws. I would argue that the job losses to automation would've happened anyway without any discussion of wage increases -- kiosks are cheaper than even below-living-wage workers.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/edrensi/2018/07/11/mcdonalds-says-goodbye-cashiers-hello-kiosks/#7c10c3666f14 https://www.forbes.com/sites/edrensi/2018/07/11/mcdonalds-sa... Though I was specifically thinking Sweden.
- tekknik 7y ago
  I haven't been to Japan in many years, but they had plenty of kiosks for ordering food from restaurants. You put in money, hit the button next to the pic of the food you want, it gives you a ticket and you take it to the cook.
pytester 7y ago
Automated kiosks for ordering aren't new - they date back about to the 1890s. They actually went out of fashion in the 1950s-60s when wages grew the fastest and died out entirely in 1991.