Why I'm no longer going to use self-checkouts

Welcome to the future! It is 2017, and if you didn't know it, we are already living in the future. We have self-driving cars, holographic computers, advanced learning neural nets capable of beating world champions in just about everything, and so much more. I remember just 15 years ago having to go into the store to pay for your gas. There was no way you could pay for it at the pump. If I saw what the world would look like today, back then, I would ask 'what type of sorcery is this?'. I for one think this is an exciting time to be alive, and sometimes scary.

Technology sure has made life so much easier for the 'average consumer'. But what exactly is the 'average consumer'? According to the ECJ’s case-law, in most cases the average consumer will be considered as reasonably well-informed, reasonably observant and circumspect. But where a commercial practice is specifically targeted at a particular consumer group, as average consumer will be regarded the average member of that group. In layman's terms, an average consumer is the largest common type of individual who has a need or want for your product.

In layman's terms, an average consumer is the largest common type of individual who has a need or want for your product

You see, the self-checkout, was introduced to the world in 1992 by Dr. Howard Schneider. The first one had it's successful trial run that year in New York City. Fast forward, and it is estimated that there will be 325,000 of these world wide by the end of 2019. I want that number to sink in a little bit. This means that there will be at least 325,000 jobs taken away from individuals, who otherwise would be able to do the job. The average world salary according to this BBC article that I could find was around 18,000 a year. If you take this number and multiply it by the loss of work these machines are causing, that is 5 BILLION dollars (just shy of 6), that is not going back into the economy. This money being saved hasn't made any of the items I buy in the store cheaper at all. Has it for you? The tragedy is that there there is even evidence to suggest that these machines do not function as efficiently as human workers, thus slowing down the process during check-out.

People will claim that the money the companies are saving using these machines is money that will be funnelled into 'new innovations', and thus leading to new jobs. But what happens to these individuals who have been displaced due to this drastic reduction within the work industry? The question we need to ask ourselves then is, who are these individuals? My roommate works at target, and they recently introduced self-checkouts in the store he works at. I have an intimate look into who these individuals are. They are just like you and me, an 'average consumer'. I say this because like all people on the planet earth, we need food to survive, and the stores that are implementing these self-checkouts are the ones we all go to grocery shop. Krogers, Target, Wal-Mart, Albertons, etc. My roommate is also a veteran, who like me and like we discussed in my article yesterday, had a job in the United States Air Force that was not one where you could go to school and earn a degree. It's actually where we met. Having no one to fall back on when he got out, he was forced to find work doing anything just to survive. He has tried to take courses to learn new skills, has applied and been denied for loans and grants for school, and has been a truly dedicated employee for the past few years at the Target he works. All of this while he is earning minimum wage on part time hours. Enough to buy groceries, get a haircut every now and again, laundry detergent, and barely cover other life necessities. He doesn't splurge and go out that often. In fact, he hasn't gone out in over a year. The tragedy here is that we both know that his job is not going to be here in a couple more years. He can't afford a car to Uber and earn an additional income, he can't afford a bus pass to get a second job to work in a warehouse on the weekend, and he doesn't have the training that will land him one of these 'new innovative jobs' that were created from the earnings saved by offsetting workers like him.

As you can see, the jobs that are being created from displacing workers like him, are not going back to workers like him. Most of them just haven't been provided the resources that would allow them to even apply for these new positions. Most of these new jobs are highly technical in nature, and being a recruiter who understands the hiring world, and someone who has learned how to code in Java, Python, Machine Learning, and more, I know it isn't something that everyone can learn. And for those who do have the aptitude to learn these things, there is a large learning curve and it can take years to learn these skills. By the time these workers do learn the skills to become eligible for these job opportunities, they don't have the experience others have in these 'new jobs', and will get overlooked and not considered.

the jobs that are being created from displacing workers like him, are not going back to workers like him

This is why it is important that we all work together, as a world community, to slow down this displacement of workers. By choosing to not go to that self-checkout, you are helping to ensure that these individuals stay gainfully employed. If we all got together and stopped using them, eventually the cost of having these machines running would be less cost-effective due to electricity costs, maintenance costs, and other fees. Eventually it may even become cheaper to just get rid of them.

All of this isn't to say that the automation and convenience that self-checkouts provide isn't helpful and doesn't have it's advantages. If you are at a store during late hours and there is one lane open and it is a long line while you only have one item to purchase, but you see the self-checkout there, I can see the appeal. I just hope that we all can be more conscious of our decisions and weigh the real costs to the convenience.

Richard "Wes" Eby is a truly technical Campus Recruiter with over 8+ years of experience within the recruitment industry. Having worked in Corporate, Staffing, RPO's and across multiple industries, his diversity sets him apart from other recruiters. While he focuses on his recruitment career, he has a passion for technology, and thus has learned how to program in Java, Python, and some of the front end languages. He is currently studying Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Artificial Intelligence in an effort to leverage these in his recruitment career.