6 ms·

>Someone stocking shelves in 2020 is about productive as someone stocking shelves in 1968. This is not completely fair. There are countless innovations that h

by slg 6y ago

>Someone stocking shelves in 2020 is about productive as someone stocking shelves in 1968. This is not completely fair. There are countless innovations that have allowed these low skill jobs to have an increase in efficiency and productivity. One example, when I was a teen and worked retail I remember we would all have to spend hours going around the store counting every product on the shelves in order to do our routine inventory checks because there was no other reasonable way to track that information. Now many stores have intelligent inventory tracking that requires little to no work from employees. The end result is that these employees are more efficient, stores need less workers, and stores can carry less inventory. Why isn't the benefit of that efficiency passed on to those employees who are now more efficient? How is that any different than a software developer receiving a higher salary because they are more efficient due to computers being more powerful?

cafed00d 6y ago
> Now many stores have intelligent inventory tracking that requires little to no work from employees. > Why isn't the benefit of that efficiency passed on to those employees who are now more efficient? It is, though, right? It is passed on to the employees who were responsible for the efficiency gains. Those employees who built those innovations — could be employees of retailer, or employees of the companies, say tech companies, for whom the retailer is a customer. I think the parent commenter’s point is still valid that: >>Someone stocking shelves in 2020 is about productive as someone stocking shelves in 1968. I would phrase it slightly differently: “the skill of stocking shelves in 2020 has been as efficient as it has been in 1968”. It’s the skill of creating innovations in inventory tracking , better statistical modeling and predictions/estimates, and probably the advent of tracking all this in digital systems that has multiplied the efficiency at the macro level. Employees who are stocking shelves have not been able to participate in those contributions.
- slg 6y ago
  That is a reasonable retort, but it ignores that last question I asked. >How is that any different than a software developer receiving a higher salary because they are more efficient due to computers being more powerful? I'll admit software developers might be a bad example for that given question since they are responsible for some downstream efficiency, but the overall point still stands. Why do high skill jobs get to capture the value of their increased efficiency but low skills jobs don't?
  - whoisburbansky 6y ago
    It sounds like the argument is that high skill jobs are the reason for the increased efficiency, so they get to keep the surplus value generated?
- confidantlake 6y ago
  It feels very arbitrary to claim the employees responsible got the gains. Like take Walmart, the biggest beneficiaries by far are the relatives of Sam Walton. Yet they did nothing to build the automated inventory tracking, the statistical modeling, or the digital systems. Or take the programmers who worked on Walmart.com. They didn't invent the transistor, Linux, or Java. They just used them to build a crud app.
  - cafed00d 6y ago
    Yes fair enough. This is why every employee should get paid _stock/rsu/whatever_. The rewards of efficiency gains that Walmart, the enterprise makes, should be shared by the people who made it happen. But then again, not many people would prefer to take that risk and instead prefer to get paid a set hourly wage. Of course, it’s a matter of balance — how much guaranteed income vs. risky income does a person want? I don’t know. That’s a really difficult problem to solve through legislation. Ultimately though stocking shelves in 1968 Walmart is about as efficient as stocking shelves in 2020.
    - confidantlake 6y ago
      It is much more efficient these days. They use apps to determine when to stock, how much to stock ect. They need many fewer people, and they run much leaner. Like I mentioned in a comment above, who we consider made it happen is arbitrary. Walmart cannot exist without a functioning society. The daughter of Sam Walton never worked at Walmart, yet she gets more of that gain than any other individual. For other products, it is even more arbitrary who gets the benefits. If facebook disappeared, another company would quickly take the role of social media leader. Likely not much would change from a productivity standpoint. Yet whoever happens to get the role of dominant social media ceo makes billions.
    - tacocataco 6y ago
      What if the minimum wage also included x stock per paycheck? Minimum stock options?
  - marcusverus 6y ago
mgolawala 6y ago
I think the point the OP is making is that the benefit of this efficiency gain is passed on to the technology teams that implement and maintain those intelligent inventory tracking systems. They are the ones getting paid the higher salaries. They are the ones making the the store workers more efficient. What makes you feel that Software developer salary is linked to computing power? In fact, even if we were to consider it a fair comparison, computing power, if measured by Moore's law has doubled every 2 years. Software Engineer salaries have lagged far far behind.
- slg 6y ago
  >What makes you feel that Software developer salary is linked to computing power? In fact, even if we were to consider it a fair comparison, computing power, if measured by Moore's law has doubled every 2 years. Software Engineer salaries have lagged far far behind. Honestly, I don't think there is any relation between developer salary and computational power. I was just reaching for a possible explanation for this[1] that fits with the theory that people are paid based on their productivity. It is my belief that people are paid based off the supply and demand for their labor. Productivity only serves as a ceiling for compensation and even then, that is only in the long term. Plenty of people are paid more than their production either over the short term or when productivity is difficult to measure. An employer's natural inclination is to pay people as far below their level of production as possible while still filling the job. It is my belief that the reason that low skill wages have stagnated is not because their efficiency has stagnated. It is because their supply is outpacing their demand. The supply of software developers is not keeping up with demand so their wages are increasing. Neither has anything to do with productivity in my opinion. [1] - https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5n4R_Osks_fVsVmedxJKsp9zPuRlc5VuDObk0DSeHzyrbAE181ThHXKgsSiTJUgnVYItw7aI7ovRqgKvdqxAkflmC9eQ2Z3v3CZbxToxgnJlSfXANViai37EdxHiz9xZltWWXBzH https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5n4R_Osks_fVsVmedxJKsp9zPu...
  - deathanatos 6y ago
    That graph is not very well laid out; in order to see the effect it purports to show, you'd want to scale the SWE salary to all salaries to compare them; otherwise, you're just looking at "SWE is paid more than most occupations" → "SWE is still paid more than most occupations". Both clearly experienced growth, but did SWE experience more growth, or did it grow proportionally? The SWE line in that graph grows by ~74%, and all other occupations by ~57%. So, the title seems probably correct, plus or minus the accuracy of my eyeball in reading those. But that's not how to present that… (And also, the sin of not putting the Y axis min at 0, to exaggerate the effect.) As a SWE myself, looking at the potential cost of housing if I ever decide to start a family, I'd mostly say SWE's wage growth hasn't kept pace. All other occupations are just getting hosed even harder. (My opinion here is that it's somewhat housing cost/supply: too little supply is driving the cost up, and wage increases are likely to just push that further. What is needed there is increases in the supply, moreso than wages, for housing specifically. For wages, I do think the minimum wage is too low, and has not kept pace. See also this graph: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/03/precariousness-modern-young-adulthood-one-chart/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/03/precariou... )
throw0101a 6y ago
> One example, when I was a teen and worked retail I remember we would all have to spend hours going around the store counting every product on the shelves in order to do our routine inventory checks because there was no other reasonable way to track that information. Now many stores have intelligent inventory tracking that requires little to no work from employees. Manual inventory is still done, often quarterly. Shrinkage will never disappear, and it needs to be accounted for regardless of smart or dumb inventory systems are: * https://www.thebalancesmb.com/top-sources-of-retail-shrinkage-2890265 https://www.thebalancesmb.com/top-sources-of-retail-shrinkag... * https://losspreventionmedia.com/how-to-calculate-shrinkage-in-retail/ https://losspreventionmedia.com/how-to-calculate-shrinkage-i... * https://paladinsecurity.com/security-prevention/prevent-shrinkage-in-retail/ https://paladinsecurity.com/security-prevention/prevent-shri... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkage_(accounting) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkage_(accounting) An outside team (either in-house or third-party) is brought in so the regular employees aren't doing their own 'audits'.
bsanr2 6y ago
It's not fair at all. The responsibilities of retail employees have grown vastly in the last 50 years. There's more product, with a greater diversity of handling requirements, which need to be stocked across larger stores later in the day (as closing times slowly approach midnight or later). That's for supermarkets (which are increasingly part of larger big box stores). If you work checkout at a place that sells anything with a microprocessor, be prepared for weeks of onboarding as you learn enough about your products to actually sell to and support customers, across a stupidly wide assortment that used to be spread across several departments. Let's not get started on discussing the interpersonal communication skills needed to survive Thanksgiving/Black Friday. And for all this, you're getting paid less than Joe W. Cash Register got way back when.
- smaryjerry 6y ago
  Your are comparing one industry and one job in that industry and it is still a bad comparison. The idea that working a cash register now takes more skill than before is false. The idea that you have to now have more knowledge is false. People were not stupid back then and supermarkets still existed, and neither then nor now does a minimum wage employee need vast amounts of knowledge. The best retail employee has a positive attitude, not knowledge of how to get to the bread aisle. It is outrageous to make such a comparison and assume current jobs are more difficult or harder when advances in nearly all technology has only improved. Remember when cashiers had to do math?
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    Every sentence you've written is the opposite of true. And cashiers still have to do math. Most places don't have automatic change dispensers, nor can a machinr account for a customer suddenly switching which bills they're going to give you. I understand that never having had to work one of those jobs is a source of pride in a lot of places, but in this thread, it just outs you as ignorant.
segmondy 6y ago
The employees are not more efficient because of their effort but because of the tech in inventory management. They are still doing the same amount of human labor that 8hrs a day calls for. Companies don't buy machines to pass on the savings to their employees in form of higher wages, they pass those savings to the owners of the company.
alvah 6y ago
“ How is that any different than a software developer receiving a higher salary because they are more efficient due to computers being more powerful?” There’s a much higher barrier to entry as a software engineer than a shelf stacker. The breakdown of returns to labor vs capital will always favour capital (absent regulatory intervention or shortage of unskilled labor) for commodity-type work.
RhysU 6y ago
> Why isn't the benefit of that efficiency passed on to those employees who are now more efficient? Because any teenager would be more efficient with automated inventory control. Teenager X didn't have to learn how to do something more complicated. The labor is interchangeable. It is a victory of capital. Labor specialization and labor skills are what allow labor to collect more of the spoils. Otherwise, labor is interchangeable. The job must need you more than you need the job. Supply and demand. On the computer power point: scaling has changed as Moore's law has died. It takes something more subtle to make modern systems sing. Something inaccessible to most teenagers without both aptitude and training.
DeonPenny 6y ago
Those innovations have 0 to do with labor of the workers. The cost of the investment in the innovation is where the wage went. How does it make sense to pay for that twice. The worker sans the innovation is no more productive.

by slg 6y ago

cafed00d 6y ago

> Now many stores have intelligent inventory tracking that requires little to no work from employees. > Why isn't the benefit of that efficiency passed on to those employees who are now more efficient? It is, though, right? It is passed on to the employees who were responsible for the efficiency gains. Those employees who built those innovations — could be employees of retailer, or employees of the companies, say tech companies, for whom the retailer is a customer. I think the parent commenter’s point is still valid that: >>Someone stocking shelves in 2020 is about productive as someone stocking shelves in 1968. I would phrase it slightly differently: “the skill of stocking shelves in 2020 has been as efficient as it has been in 1968”. It’s the skill of creating innovations in inventory tracking , better statistical modeling and predictions/estimates, and probably the advent of tracking all this in digital systems that has multiplied the efficiency at the macro level. Employees who are stocking shelves have not been able to participate in those contributions.

slg 6y ago
That is a reasonable retort, but it ignores that last question I asked. >How is that any different than a software developer receiving a higher salary because they are more efficient due to computers being more powerful? I'll admit software developers might be a bad example for that given question since they are responsible for some downstream efficiency, but the overall point still stands. Why do high skill jobs get to capture the value of their increased efficiency but low skills jobs don't?
- whoisburbansky 6y ago
  It sounds like the argument is that high skill jobs are the reason for the increased efficiency, so they get to keep the surplus value generated?
confidantlake 6y ago
It feels very arbitrary to claim the employees responsible got the gains. Like take Walmart, the biggest beneficiaries by far are the relatives of Sam Walton. Yet they did nothing to build the automated inventory tracking, the statistical modeling, or the digital systems. Or take the programmers who worked on Walmart.com. They didn't invent the transistor, Linux, or Java. They just used them to build a crud app.
- cafed00d 6y ago
  Yes fair enough. This is why every employee should get paid _stock/rsu/whatever_. The rewards of efficiency gains that Walmart, the enterprise makes, should be shared by the people who made it happen. But then again, not many people would prefer to take that risk and instead prefer to get paid a set hourly wage. Of course, it’s a matter of balance — how much guaranteed income vs. risky income does a person want? I don’t know. That’s a really difficult problem to solve through legislation. Ultimately though stocking shelves in 1968 Walmart is about as efficient as stocking shelves in 2020.
  - confidantlake 6y ago
    It is much more efficient these days. They use apps to determine when to stock, how much to stock ect. They need many fewer people, and they run much leaner. Like I mentioned in a comment above, who we consider made it happen is arbitrary. Walmart cannot exist without a functioning society. The daughter of Sam Walton never worked at Walmart, yet she gets more of that gain than any other individual. For other products, it is even more arbitrary who gets the benefits. If facebook disappeared, another company would quickly take the role of social media leader. Likely not much would change from a productivity standpoint. Yet whoever happens to get the role of dominant social media ceo makes billions.
  - tacocataco 6y ago
    What if the minimum wage also included x stock per paycheck? Minimum stock options?
- marcusverus 6y ago

mgolawala 6y ago

I think the point the OP is making is that the benefit of this efficiency gain is passed on to the technology teams that implement and maintain those intelligent inventory tracking systems. They are the ones getting paid the higher salaries. They are the ones making the the store workers more efficient. What makes you feel that Software developer salary is linked to computing power? In fact, even if we were to consider it a fair comparison, computing power, if measured by Moore's law has doubled every 2 years. Software Engineer salaries have lagged far far behind.

slg 6y ago
>What makes you feel that Software developer salary is linked to computing power? In fact, even if we were to consider it a fair comparison, computing power, if measured by Moore's law has doubled every 2 years. Software Engineer salaries have lagged far far behind. Honestly, I don't think there is any relation between developer salary and computational power. I was just reaching for a possible explanation for this[1] that fits with the theory that people are paid based on their productivity. It is my belief that people are paid based off the supply and demand for their labor. Productivity only serves as a ceiling for compensation and even then, that is only in the long term. Plenty of people are paid more than their production either over the short term or when productivity is difficult to measure. An employer's natural inclination is to pay people as far below their level of production as possible while still filling the job. It is my belief that the reason that low skill wages have stagnated is not because their efficiency has stagnated. It is because their supply is outpacing their demand. The supply of software developers is not keeping up with demand so their wages are increasing. Neither has anything to do with productivity in my opinion. [1] - https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5n4R_Osks_fVsVmedxJKsp9zPuRlc5VuDObk0DSeHzyrbAE181ThHXKgsSiTJUgnVYItw7aI7ovRqgKvdqxAkflmC9eQ2Z3v3CZbxToxgnJlSfXANViai37EdxHiz9xZltWWXBzH https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5n4R_Osks_fVsVmedxJKsp9zPu...
- deathanatos 6y ago
  That graph is not very well laid out; in order to see the effect it purports to show, you'd want to scale the SWE salary to all salaries to compare them; otherwise, you're just looking at "SWE is paid more than most occupations" → "SWE is still paid more than most occupations". Both clearly experienced growth, but did SWE experience more growth, or did it grow proportionally? The SWE line in that graph grows by ~74%, and all other occupations by ~57%. So, the title seems probably correct, plus or minus the accuracy of my eyeball in reading those. But that's not how to present that… (And also, the sin of not putting the Y axis min at 0, to exaggerate the effect.) As a SWE myself, looking at the potential cost of housing if I ever decide to start a family, I'd mostly say SWE's wage growth hasn't kept pace. All other occupations are just getting hosed even harder. (My opinion here is that it's somewhat housing cost/supply: too little supply is driving the cost up, and wage increases are likely to just push that further. What is needed there is increases in the supply, moreso than wages, for housing specifically. For wages, I do think the minimum wage is too low, and has not kept pace. See also this graph: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/03/precariousness-modern-young-adulthood-one-chart/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/03/precariou... )

throw0101a 6y ago

> One example, when I was a teen and worked retail I remember we would all have to spend hours going around the store counting every product on the shelves in order to do our routine inventory checks because there was no other reasonable way to track that information. Now many stores have intelligent inventory tracking that requires little to no work from employees. Manual inventory is still done, often quarterly. Shrinkage will never disappear, and it needs to be accounted for regardless of smart or dumb inventory systems are: * https://www.thebalancesmb.com/top-sources-of-retail-shrinkage-2890265 https://www.thebalancesmb.com/top-sources-of-retail-shrinkag... * https://losspreventionmedia.com/how-to-calculate-shrinkage-in-retail/ https://losspreventionmedia.com/how-to-calculate-shrinkage-i... * https://paladinsecurity.com/security-prevention/prevent-shrinkage-in-retail/ https://paladinsecurity.com/security-prevention/prevent-shri... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkage_(accounting) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkage_(accounting) An outside team (either in-house or third-party) is brought in so the regular employees aren't doing their own 'audits'.

bsanr2 6y ago

It's not fair at all. The responsibilities of retail employees have grown vastly in the last 50 years. There's more product, with a greater diversity of handling requirements, which need to be stocked across larger stores later in the day (as closing times slowly approach midnight or later). That's for supermarkets (which are increasingly part of larger big box stores). If you work checkout at a place that sells anything with a microprocessor, be prepared for weeks of onboarding as you learn enough about your products to actually sell to and support customers, across a stupidly wide assortment that used to be spread across several departments. Let's not get started on discussing the interpersonal communication skills needed to survive Thanksgiving/Black Friday. And for all this, you're getting paid less than Joe W. Cash Register got way back when.

smaryjerry 6y ago
Your are comparing one industry and one job in that industry and it is still a bad comparison. The idea that working a cash register now takes more skill than before is false. The idea that you have to now have more knowledge is false. People were not stupid back then and supermarkets still existed, and neither then nor now does a minimum wage employee need vast amounts of knowledge. The best retail employee has a positive attitude, not knowledge of how to get to the bread aisle. It is outrageous to make such a comparison and assume current jobs are more difficult or harder when advances in nearly all technology has only improved. Remember when cashiers had to do math?
- bsanr2 6y ago
  Every sentence you've written is the opposite of true. And cashiers still have to do math. Most places don't have automatic change dispensers, nor can a machinr account for a customer suddenly switching which bills they're going to give you. I understand that never having had to work one of those jobs is a source of pride in a lot of places, but in this thread, it just outs you as ignorant.

segmondy 6y ago

The employees are not more efficient because of their effort but because of the tech in inventory management. They are still doing the same amount of human labor that 8hrs a day calls for. Companies don't buy machines to pass on the savings to their employees in form of higher wages, they pass those savings to the owners of the company.

alvah 6y ago

“ How is that any different than a software developer receiving a higher salary because they are more efficient due to computers being more powerful?” There’s a much higher barrier to entry as a software engineer than a shelf stacker. The breakdown of returns to labor vs capital will always favour capital (absent regulatory intervention or shortage of unskilled labor) for commodity-type work.

RhysU 6y ago

> Why isn't the benefit of that efficiency passed on to those employees who are now more efficient? Because any teenager would be more efficient with automated inventory control. Teenager X didn't have to learn how to do something more complicated. The labor is interchangeable. It is a victory of capital. Labor specialization and labor skills are what allow labor to collect more of the spoils. Otherwise, labor is interchangeable. The job must need you more than you need the job. Supply and demand. On the computer power point: scaling has changed as Moore's law has died. It takes something more subtle to make modern systems sing. Something inaccessible to most teenagers without both aptitude and training.

DeonPenny 6y ago

Those innovations have 0 to do with labor of the workers. The cost of the investment in the innovation is where the wage went. How does it make sense to pay for that twice. The worker sans the innovation is no more productive.