KANSAS CITY 'FIGHT FOR $15' PUSH BACK: McDONALD'S FOCUSED ON KIOSKS, APPS AND NEW TECH TO REPLACE WORKERS!!!
The fight over horrible food and wages continues . . . While Kansas City recently approved a minimum wage increase and a Missouri legislative and court battle continues . . . Corporate efforts to confront this phenomena are much more quick to take hold.
Special thanks o our blog community for citing this example:
McDonald's Investors Statement from March 1st Announced:
"Inside the restaurants, McDonald’s is bringing greater control, convenience and personalization to our customers through the use of kiosks to place orders, staffed with guest experience leaders to assist in the process. Customers can place their order and skip the front counter entirely, with their food brought right to their table. Additionally, customers will be able to place orders directly on the mobile app for pickup or have a kiosk recognize their app profile, which holds customized favorites and preferred payment methods. The result is a more stress-free, personalized experience, enhanced by technology and world-class hospitality that puts customers in control."
This begs the question, how many $15 per hour "guest experience leaders" jobs will be required if no one needs to man a cash register. My guess is substantially less. You see, people go to McDonald's for the food, not for the guy manning the cash register or the person flipping burgers. This can, and soon will be automated.
Heck, if we can push the minimum wage up higher, Micky-Ds could soon be using drones to deliver food directly to your home or car (like Amazon) and could completely eliminate the need for any human's involved... talk about a great guest experience... I could just see it... "McDonalds, I'm traveling at 70 miles an hour west on I-70, please deliver two Big- Macs to my sun-roof at mile marker 17. Charge Apple-pay please."
Tony's Kansas City is the ONLY source in the metro that has identified the real economic hardships caused by phony-economists and political hacks calling for increases in the minimum wage.
We hope you get higher pay, but recognize the long term consequence will be more unemployment... as we've said now going on 5 years.
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Developing . . .
I'll miss getting my order messed up, my change returned incorrectly (sometimes in my favor, which takes way too long to correct) and someone who believes they deserve the pay of a surgeon to push one button labeled with a PICTURE because my ENGLISH and their native born-ENGLISH are on two different levels and my order of the "NUMBER-3" was too complicated....
ReplyDeleteYeah... what a disaster for mankind.... oh no... the world may stop turning.....
Great post. True economics....well done Tony.
The industry was shifting to kiosks and automation regardless of minimum wage hikes or not. You sound foolish Tony to insinuate that if the minimum wage wasn't raised then there would be no kiosk.
ReplyDeleteKiosk were probably inevitable. But what your missing is the other small hamburger joints. When the technology becomes cheaper what will be the point where a kiosk investment outweighs the price of $15 employees.
DeleteJust imagine what an advancement this will be. You can not only order with a lucid processor, but you order will be taken correctly. No increase in the price of burgers, no waiting at the drive through for ten minutes and then not getting napkins or catsup and no getting quit the Ebonics translator to understand what the server just trying to say. KC government needs to meddle more in private business to provide the motivation to cut their nads off at every opportunity. Now if KC could manage to motivate the ghetto apes to graduate from high school and go on to college maybe we could reduce cost to tax payers by billions.
ReplyDelete"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." Love, HAL9000.
ReplyDeleteThe push for a mandatory 15 dollar per hour wage, as it relates to fast food workers was a dream come true for fast food companies. Leveling the playing field at an anticipated $15.00 per hour wage, incentivized companies to invest earlier in technology they wanted all along and hoped would come as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteThe idiots insisting on a Government forced dictate, are now finding out just how that big business dick tastes.
People pushing for the 15 dollar an hour law, financed the machines that will replace the very people they are trying to help.
Maybe now, those same morons who pushed this ill advised and pernicious measure, will force the Government to re-educate those newly unemployed workers. They could learn to be Rocket Surgeons.
Maybe they could be hateful twats who spend their days commenting on local blogs. Or are all those jobs filled by poorly educated white trash?
DeleteHow about the stalkers of said twats? Hmmm. :)
Delete^^ouch did that hurt chuck?
Delete"McDonald’s is bringing greater control, convenience and personalization to our customers through the use of kiosks to place orders... ."
ReplyDeleteGee. For my convenience I get to do the work of an order taker. How about paying me minimum wage to do so? Actually, for my convenience, I'll just cook at home.
Economics 101: Robots don't buy anything.
ReplyDeleteMy goodness Chuck made a lucid point... "incentivized companies to invest earlier in technology they wanted all along and hoped would come as soon as possible."
ReplyDeleteKey point being it was coming all along, and the minimum wage increases will cause it to come earlier. However, unless we know how much more quickly it will come versus if there were no increase, we can't know if this is a net positive or net negative for the minimum wage worker. What we do know is that it is a net gain for anyone above minimum wage because they won't be replaced by a kiosk, but will also have a wage increase because a rising tide lifts all boats.
So the winner of a minimum wage increase may or may not be minimum wage earners, but it is almost surely a win for the levels above minimum wage (i.e. the lower middle class)
Robots can't spit on your food!
ReplyDelete9:24 No they won't spit in your food, but they do contaminate your food and could kill you.
ReplyDelete"But contamination of food with foreign objects, and metal pieces in particular, happens more often than you might think."
Check out this TIME article from March 2015 http://time.com/3749676/metal-shards-food-recall/
^^^ Yep, especially those who Got "White Privilege". Stay safe, eat at home.
ReplyDelete^^^ @9:24
ReplyDelete+1 8:51. I don't mind using Taco Bells ordering app or Chipotle because I don't have to wait. Just pick up and go, there is value for me. But now they want me to be my own order taker when I take the time to go into a restaurant? No consumer value there. Just a corporation that is shifting labor instead of labor costs onto the consumer.
ReplyDeleteFor those concerned...just don't eat and it is a win for everyone.
ReplyDelete9:56 ???? concerned about what?
ReplyDeleteHilton has been rolling out automation for the last two years, before most of the major minimum wage increases. Automation of jobs is not wholly independent of, but is at some level independent of a rise in labor costs.
ReplyDeleteThis area is depopulating. Murders and drug overdoses alone will offset the losses of automation. Nature finds a way for Capitalism to prosper!
ReplyDeleteChuck...what are you gonna do for a job then? I heard you were banned from the bus station. How are you gonna spend your days now?
ReplyDeleteI for one look forward to our new robot overlords.
ReplyDeleteByron's unaffected; he doesn't have a job anyway. Just collects his public assistance, surfs porn, and follows orders from the mud shark.
ReplyDeleteWhat's so difficult to understand about supply and demand? It's not a partisan issue, it's basic economics. When the cost of a good or service rises, the demand for it will decrease until equilibrium is achieved. You can try to artificially affect the equation all you want, the economic principles behind it will always win.
ReplyDeleteIf the $15-an-hour folks really wanted to gain something that has a realistic chance of affecting their lives for the better in the long term, they should push for better (and subsidized as necessary by need) skills training. This would allow them to gain the ability to obtain jobs that already pay $15/hour.
Nice thought but, to many people have been screwed by the education system. People spend thousands of dollars for a degree and still get no job out of it and thousands of dollars in debt which will be repaid even take it out of ones Social Security checks when they retire.
Delete^^ he's talking about you, byron.
ReplyDelete