Some sad news for fast food workers demanding $15 per hour
 

It's not like they didn't see THIS coming... Remember Economics 101: Capital and Labor are pretty much interchangeable

The McDonald's by us installed the self serving kiosks and then cut down the amount of people on a cash register to one.

People fail to understand the concept of minimum wage. You cannot live off of minimum wage; It is not meant to support someone. It's meant to say "you are at the very bottom and you need to do better". When I got out of the Marines I worked four jobs to make ends meet, and I live in a two bedroom apartment with my girlfriend and her friend.

First of many including retail jobs

They will still need people to load the machines, hand out the orders not to mention clean it all.

Sure. Robotics won't eliminate all jobs, just 85% of them.

I've been hearing that forever.

The problem with the robot theory is that it increases the start up cost too much.
For most small businesses the idea is dead on arrival.

Robots aren't going to kill off retail employees faster them Amazon is.

They said that about computers 50 years ago.
So now there is not less jobs; but every job is on a computer.

:1orglaugh

I'm still not getting a burger there, I love creating my own at home..
https://scontent.fsan1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...e2&oe=5BA29518

Like you, I have been hearing that computers are going to kill our jobs my entire life. However, there is a big difference between now and the 1980's when I first started hearing this.

First, we were correct in the past. Computers did kill a lot of jobs. Where we were wrong was in how many jobs the industry would create. That said, there is a big difference between now and then. Computers, software, the internet etc is designed to make our lives easier, faster, more efficient etc. The goal of automation/robotics is to remove us from the equation. Instead of working with us they will replace us. Another issue is the technology. In the 1980's it just didn't exist. Now it does. we are seeing more and more new, cool stuff every day. Sure, there will be some new jobs created, but I fear not nearly enough to replace those that were lost.

While I don't think robots will kill retail anytime soon, I do think we will see major disruptions in the fast food and manufacturing worlds in the next 15-20 years. Major companies in China and other third world countries are starting to get into robotics and automation. When the places we outsource to because of their cheap labor are developing automation for their plants, that is not a good sign for unskilled workers.

Also, do you not thing Amazon taking over retail isn't a form of automation? Amazon's goal is to get products to you as quickly as possible with as few human hands touching them as possible.

I saw it happen myself in the early 1990's. I worked for an electornic manufacturering company. They got bought out and the new owners came in and over about a year's time they brought in a bunch of new equiptment and got rid of the assembly lines. When it was all said and done about 10 of the original 150 people were kept, the other 140 were fired. They hired another 20 or so new people to run and maintain the machines. They effectively cut their workforce from around 150 to 30. The savings in payroll and benefits alone will pay for those machines pretty quickly.

The minimum wage in Australia is $18 an hour and they're doing great.

It's absurd to think that an unskilled worker in America can work multiple minimum wage jobs now @ even 105 hours a week and still not be able to afford rent, transportation & food, but that's where a lot of America is at now, the working poor as corporations make record profits and increase wages an average of 2% a year, as rent increases 10% a year, food 3% a year, gas is up 20%, the list goes on.

I worked 3 jobs in high school at the same time to support myself and I had to rent a room from an old lady. After graduating I could afford my own studio but no money for a car. It's even worse for minimum wage workers nowdays they qualify for public assistance working full time, that's a result of the business world being greedy and lobbying for the government to foot the bill instead of paying fair wages.

When I lived in Australia everyone I knew owned a home & a rental property and most owned a boat. The waitress at the shithole cafe made $25 and hour plus tips and just bought her first condo.

when I worked fast food jobs as a teen in the 80's our min wage paid for a lot more than it does today. Should MCD workers get $15 per hour? hell no but they should have had the same inflation raises over the last few decades and that would be like $12 per hour today.

Yeah there will be cases where the machines get rid of many employees, no doubt.

But a lot of things will probably be like the ATM.
The ATM has been around for a long time; but every bank is still full of tellers.

For a while, no doubt. My mom is 78 and refuses to us an ATM because she thinks she will get robbed or her identity may be stolen so she will only go to the bank during business hours so she can talk to a person.

When I think it will really kick in is as younger people start to grow up and take over. The kids of today are born into technology so it doesn't feel strange to them to use a computer or piece of technology to get something. It's not going to happen today, tomorrow, next year, or even in the next decade, but I won't be shocked if in the not too far off future we find ourselves in a situation where we no longer have enough jobs for everyone who wants one and massive unemployment develops.

We are already is that situation in the world.

I think that fast food restaurants were happy to hire young people fresh out of high school and pay them a fair UNSKILLED worker salary to give them their first job in life.

Yes, they could have automated years ago. But it was good public relations for the communitys they are in.

But now? $15 an hour to do the job a monkey can do?

Nope. It's going automated...just as I said it would when they started demanding high wages for a job that requires ZERO skills.

I've already started seeing it at local McDonalds here. Going to McDonalds is so expensive that you can go to a real restaurant and eat for the same price or less.

For instance, I have always enjoyed a 1/4 Pounder meal...large size. It was always about $4.00 in the past.

But now? It's almost nine dollars for that shitty meal.

I can go to Lino's Italian restaurant down the street and get a plate of great spaghetti bolognese for $7.00.

Fast food was always the CHEAP way to have a meal. Not now.

So I went through McDonalds and ordered a sweet tea the other day...and guess what I saw...right by the drive in window the drinks are now automated.
I watched the cup drop into a slot on a "conveyor belt" and go under the ice machine where it was given the perfect measurement of ice and then to the sweet tea dispenser where it was filled to the top perfectly, and then to a spot where a lid was placed on it.
All without a human touching it.

Next up will be touchpad order screens to eliminate the morons asking "Would you like fries with that" at $15 an hour.

Congrats to all the unskilled workers who "demanded" a "living wage". Soon you will have NO wage at all.

miam ... miam ...

Cholesterol !!!!!!


( why all good tasting feel good foods are unhealthy ... :mad: )

Again you show your lack of economics and big business billion dollar worldwide franchises compaired to mom & pop restaurants that don't have investors expecting increased profits every quarter.

Actually your wrong, when fdr did min wage is was a min wage to be able to live. The robots were coming if they were paid 4 dollars an hour. The people who celebrate this are short sighted. These people can't get jobs,guess who pays for them.

Up until recently food workers NEVER even made minimum wage in most states that I am aware of.

It was understood that working as a waitress at a restaurant was for tips. And working at a fast food joint was a starter job for kids out of high school.

And nobody is "celebrating". Just the opposite. I can only wonder what kids are going to do for an entry level job. They no longer exist when people have to pay out $15 an hour for UNSKILLED bullshit work.
So it will now be automated. You should pat yourself on the back since you were one of the ones here on GFY cheering for a "living wage" nonsense for minimum wage.
Congrats to you Tony!

I’m not sure people in Australia on minimum wage are “doing great” a lot of those jobs are casual, low hours available jobs. The majority of Australians are under-employed and there are now more casual and part-time workers than full-time permanent workers here.

This waitress on 25 bucks, for a forty hour week that’s a thousand bucks or 50k a year. I’m gonna hazard a guess that the condo is not in a major city?

Added to that, the AUD to USD exchange rate is shit too, 18 AUD is about 13 USD.

No wonder they automate, this shit is produced and sold in quantities like Chinese schlocks. There are always at least 10 cars waiting in the line when I want to order a burger at 10 pm.

So.. the next marketing trick of the competition could be offering quality hand made burgers. :winkwink:

..and charge extra for the quality. :2 cents:

I don't believe in the USA they get holiday pay, penalty rates, long service payments, superannuation and all the other "extras" that go on top of the "min" wage. Which bring the min wage here closer to 24 a hour. Casual over full time is instantly + 25% here ^^

15 USD hour ( 20 Aus) still seems low but its more in tune with the rest of the western world.

Robbies still living in 1984 that's obvious.. :P

Yeah, that's pretty much the other shoe waiting to drop. Hopefully, folks working those jobs can clue in on the fact that its easy to set up your own dropship online store.

What's wrong with 1984? :1orglaugh

But I don't care if it's 1904, 1984, or 2018...unskilled labor should be paid what it's worth...next to nothing.
SKILLED labor is of value. Not unskilled.

It's like telling EVERYBODY that they are GREAT! No, they aren't. Some people have no skills and no training (as in teenagers fresh out of highschool).
And some people are very skilled with a lot of education and training and DESERVE to be paid well.

I don't care what era or year you want to use as an example...you shouldn't pay more for ANY job than exactly what it's worth.

30-40% of the population will never be skilled...

you have 2 solutions:

-give them 15$/hour so that they can make ends meet
-give them 15$/hour in the form of food stamps or welfare or whatever

either way its goona cost you...

Because $15 now buys you what you got for $1.50 in 1984, no ones getting rich they're just keeping up with inflation, min wage just prevents exploitation.. as it always has... kinda.

We have a labor shortage and it will get worse. Next ten years are going to be heck on what we think of as the norm.

Doesn't matter if it's $15 dollars or $3 an hour. Companies will find ways to automate and cut out the human worker. Machines don't need vacations, health insurance, are more dependable, etc

Automation and job losses from it have been happening since mankind first invented the tool..

you can buy a bottle of vodka and sit at home and get drunk. you can go out and drink the same vodka in a bar. One bar might even have a robot that serves you, and another might have a big boob blonde with a killer smile, who decides to bend over and clean the bottom fridge while you sit there.

Each vodka has different prices.. for the same thing but you pay depending on the human interaction.... The robot is not taking the blondes job ever.

Some jobs will be lost, but new jobs will be created none of us working in the Tech side of adult, work in jobs that even existed 30 years ago, why do you think the future will be any different than the past..

WTF is that green shit?

A tri-layered booger patty?

I eat ham burgers not ham boogers.

:2 cents:

"Up until recently food workers NEVER even made minimum wage in most states that I am aware of." Really the cooks and dish washers get paid less than min wage? That only applies to waiters and waitresses.

Most min wage fast food workers are much older now, these were the people that would of worked good factory jobs but most of those are gone.. I cant remember the last time I saw a kid working at a fast food restaurant or a grocery store. Its all adults.


Franklin D. Roosevelt: Message to Congress on Establishing Minimum Wages and Maximum Hours. nothing in there about teenagers.

Other than kiosks we don't have the automation here in canada yet but we do have the min wage boost up to 14 and soon 15 by the end of the year. Because of that mcdonalds and other fastfood places have increased prices at LEAST 25% and it's going to continue to climb i'm sure.

Here it is comparable to eat at a modest restaurant rather than eat fast food. It helps keep us away from there, which i'm sure is good in the long run health wise but the problem has already begun with employment. More and more older people are conceding for these jobs and working there now and those jobs that would normally go to youth are disappearing. Our inflation has already gone up so fast that its had a direct impact everyone. People who once earned a modest living in the middle class are essentially earning less because the cost of living has gone way up and we aren't even a year into this huge min wage hike.

There has to be a better way...

Nope. That's the nonsense you were spouting during the Obama years.
NOW...the U.S. unemployment rate is so low that there are MORE jobs than people to fill them.

And you are not being truthful about fast food restaurants Tony. There are not McDonalds staffed with all middle aged people.

I go to the grocery store and of course it's usually older women running the cash register. Always has been my entire life for the most part. They are working because they want extra money.

But I'm talking fast food here. You're just not telling the truth if you are claiming you don't see young people working at McDonalds. That's a lie.

Being 100% honest here. I went to my local McDonald's about three weeks ago. The drive through had a lot of cars in it so I parked and went inside. Of the roughly 10 employees I saw (there were some in the back I couldn't see) I would say 7 of them were people over the age of 40 or very close to it. This was in the middle of the afternoon. If I went back at say 5pm after school was out, there might be more younger people there, but there are a lot of older people working. In fact, in a recent study they found the average age of a fast food worker was 29.2 years old.

Yes, these jobs are meant for people who are just starting out or who are looking for a part time gig for a little extra money, but there are plenty of older people working them for a number of reasons. Also, I'm not advocating for a $15/hr wage, I'm just saying there are likely a lot more older people working in fast food than you realize.

This is straight from the McDonalds website:
"What is the average age of a McDonald's employee?"
The average age of an 'hourly-paid' employee is 20. You might like to know that we employ 120,000 people of all ages, from school leaving age to people in their 80s. We're also one of the biggest providers of first-time jobs in the U.K."

And here is an article in Forbes from a guy who worked for McDonalds for 30 years including 13 years as the President of McDonalds.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspi.../#7b6b139f3edd

From that article:
"Let's do the math: A typical franchisee sells about $2.6 million worth of burgers, fries, shakes and Happy Meals each year, leaving them with $156,000 in profit. If that franchisee has 15 part-time employees on staff earning minimum wage, a $15 hourly pay requirement eats up three-quarters of their profitability. (In reality, the costs will be much higher, as the company will have to fund raises further up the pay scale.) For some locations, a $15 minimum wage wipes out their entire profit."

"Recouping those costs isn't as simple as raising prices. If it were easy to add big price increases to a meal, it would have already been done without a wage hike to trigger it. In the real world, our industry customers are notoriously sensitive to price increases. (If you're a McDonald's regular, there's a reason you gravitate towards an extra-value meal or the dollar menu.) Instead, franchisees can absorb the cost with a change that customers don't mind: The substitution of a self-service computer kiosk for a a full-service employee."

But wait I was I liar because I saw no kids but you put here the average age is 20 not 16. I like you, robbie but pLease if you don't agree with me let's leave it at that. Why would I fucking lie, I don't have to prove my point to anyone.

I saw a help wanted sign at mailboxes etc. They were looking for counter person and they prefer a degree. For working at a counter, making fucking copies if the job market was so hot you wouldn't see that. I remember during the tech boom, if you got certificate you had a good paying job, no degree just a certificate.

Thank you well said. Also 15 dollars is not alot of money 2018.

If the average age is 29 then it's not a starter job anymore, it's job. Once these were factory workers.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...for-a-big-mac/


According to this it's the same as the USA. Also prices don't just rise, there is only so much someone will pay for McDonald's burger.

Yes, if you say that there are nothing but older people working at McDonalds...that is a lie.

And I never said the age should be "16" that's you saying that.

I said it is SUPPOSED to be an entry level job for people starting out in life. 18 years old out of high school for instance.
And the "Average" age would mean putting all the ages of everyone working there together and then dividing it by the number of employees.

So some are much younger and some are older. And I'm sure there are some 70 year olds working at McDonalds too. So what?

Doesn't mean that ANY of them should be getting anything more than what the job is worth.

Instead...they have all been fucked out of a job completely by the dumbasses who "protested" and the idiots in media who pushed that stupid agenda.

Congrats.

Those are from articles in 2013 and 2015 when Sweet Baby Jesus Obama's economy was in full effect.

NOW...factory jobs are coming back. I know you don't WANT to hear that because Trump is doing what Obama claimed was no longer possible.

And yet they have risen Tony. Just like I said they would and just like you are still in denial of it.

That's why things are having to go automated. READ what the former President of McDonalds said in the post I made above.

McDonalds are owned by franchisees. And raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour will wipe out ALL of their profit.

I don't know about you...but why the fuck would anyone want to work their entire lives...and finally have their own business in the form of McDonalds franchise...only to NOT make any money?

WTF? Are you really going to pretend that you can't understand that unskilled labor is CHEAP. And that people owning a fast food franchise are not in business to NOT make money.

Jesus Fucking Christ...

An adult will get between 18-25 to serve food in Australia the local manager of a Mcdonalds store drives a high end Range Rover. It certainly not the end of the world in some parts.

Don't let Robbie know McDonalds Australia is their most profitable international operation returning close to 1 billion a year to the USA and just on 2 billion local franchise profits.

.. his brain might explode.

yes, all kinds of conceptual failures around this place

-for instance you believe one TV show is true and 1 TV show is not true without any evidence.


and yes because you are not entitled :2 cents:

Jesus fuckng Christmas 15 dollars is alot of money to you in 2018? Try and live on 450 a week and get back to me how it's alot of money. Are you so blinded by ideology, that brains go out the window. You are a smart man.Also some people that's all they can do.Everyone is not meant to be a captain of industry if everyone was then there would be nothing special about it. They are working so I respect them for that. It's stupid to assume everyone is as smart and gifted as you.

Again Tony..you don't pay someone MORE THAN THEY ARE WORTH.

And do the math...the President of McDonalds SHOWED IT TO YOU. Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and you wipe out the franchise owners profit.

Sure the corporation will still make their money. But the guy who has everything on the line to own a McDonalds store will lose his ass.

This has ALWAYS been the way it is. People didn't always feel so entitled. There used to be an understanding that you START at the bottom and work your way UP.

This was my point. Yes, in a perfect world fast food places and other jobs like this would be starter jobs for high school kids, recent grads, or part time gigs for people just looking to make a few extra bucks. I saw the other day that 53% of the all the jobs being created in this country are lower paying jobs. That is up from where it was right after the recession, but the reality of these days is that there are a ton of young people who have gone to college and got degrees and are now finding out that qualifies them to fold shirts at the Gap because that is the type of jobs that are out there.

I'm not saying this is proof we should pay fast food workers $15/hr (although I saw a story the other day about a guy who owns a Chick Fil A who was going to start paying his employees $17/hr). I'm just saying the work landscape has changed and will continue to do so.