ZeroHedge: In yet another awkwardly rational response to government intervention in deciding what’s “fair”, the blowback from minimum wage demanding fast food workers has struck again. Wendy’s plans to install self-ordering kiosks in 1,000 of its stores – 16% of its locations nationwide.
“Last year was tough — 5 percent wage inflation,” said Bob Wright, Wendy’s chief operating officer, during his presentation to investors and analysts last week. He added that the company expects wages to rise 4 percent in 2017. “But the real question is what are we doing about it?”
Wright noted that over the past two years, Wendy’s has figured out how to eliminate 31 hours of labor per week from its restaurants and is now working to use technology, such as kiosks, to increase efficiency.
Wendy’s chief information officer, David Trimm, said the kiosks are intended to appeal to younger customers and reduce labor costs. Kiosks also allow customers of the fast food giant to circumvent long lines during peak dining hours while increasing kitchen production. MORE
Self order kiosks at places like Wawa are great. I can see a day when you place your order and pay from your mobile device and no robot will spit in your food.
Real inflation is a lot more than the government’s cooked books version, so 5% wage inflation isn’t out of line with reality, only out of line with unrealistic profit objectives.
I don’t use self check lanes in stores since I don’t get a discount, nor do I work for the business, nor do I want to take entry level jobs out of the economy. So I won’t be using these until there is zero other option.
Sure minimum wage is a bad idea, but so is eliminating the entry level jobs young people can learn a work ethic at.
Every time I see the $15 dollar min wage demand I laugh in the direction of Starsux.
They have been selling coffee out of machines for years. Where will all the ‘studies’ majors get a job?
I am really gonna miss the ordering experience with that angry black girl attitude from Wandeequa…
I’ve seen these work at McDonalds and while they need some tweaking (the system sometimes gets a little confused and you have to get the mgr) they are a good (well, bad for humans) step forward. The biggest limitation is that they don’t take cash at this point. That would make the machine bulkier and a target for thieves but that could be overcome. There are private firms already well on their way to creating a burger machine (remember those old McD ads from the late 60’s and early 70″s featuring John Amos singing about “there is nothing so clean as my Burger Machine”, nasty bit of foreshadowing that) that will cut the back crew back to a couple to keep the machine filled and a mechanic. Yep, just keep pushing that $15 minimum or “livable” wage crap unions.
Robots won’t spit in your food.
Fast-food workers to go the way of elevator operators.
As a teen, I delivered newspapers, bagged groceries, worked fast food, cashier, caddie at golf course, and had a full time job keeping a company of 10 employees connected to the internet back when connecting to the internet was a full time job.
ALL of these jobs have been scaled back. Now I’ve got a 13 year old that has high ambitions of owning certain expensive things, but has not ever worked a day in his life and “can’t find” any work as a 13 year old. I was going on my 2nd job at age 13. Apparently the hiring age has been raised for a lot of positions also.
You do know the cash registers at a fast food place ARE kiosks.
They’ll just let us use the touch screen, and have a secure way to take payment (check out at Home Depot, WalMart, etc.).
Expect to see a Roomba thingy cleaning the floors and tables next.
get rid of the minimum wage laws and watch America go back to work, welfare moms and deadbeat dads included as well as the youngsters.
get your government out of my employment !
where’s my “choice” when it comes to my working wage ?
how come it’s easier to get an abortion at 13 than find a job ?
how come it’s easier to get an abortion at 13 than find a job ?
What a comment on the current conditions in a godless America.
“Expect to see a Roomba thingy cleaning the floors and tables next.”
Maybe a flush and wash with some big drains in the floor.
Those fire extinguishers on the ceiling could double as cleaning crew.
@grayjohn: Yes, but if, in the future, you notice a slight taste of machine oil in your taco salad, you’ll know that Science has made another breakthrough in the advancement of robotics.
🙂
@Vietvet – I’ll have the taco salad with some machine oil on the slide.
But where will all the “dreamers” work?
I was on the road a lot last week and stopped at 2 McDonalds that had kiosks. In one I never saw anybody use them, at the other they had an employee stationed by them to guide customers into using them. Problem was, I used it but had to go to a register to finish the transaction because I had a coupon. And I NEVER go to Mcdonalds without a coupon. At the Walmart self check station the machine can scan coupons, so Ronald needs to borrow that technology.
the automation and mechanization of all these processes illustrates the need to import millions of illiterate third worlders
It’s an ever increasing self service world.
@Vietvet ~ I’ve already ate at Taco Hell … is there a difference?
So, when Nobama put into effect the $15 dollar
an hour federal labor law, that included all civilian
contract workers on federal bases. That was a little
over a year ago. Last year, the two McDonald’s base
contracts here in Guam were up for renewal, and they
didn’t bid because of the $15 dollar an hour mandatory
minimum pay.
Wendy’s bid the contract and won. My bet is it will
be electronic kiosks and kitchen workers only. They will
open this summer, and we’ll see.