[Dane]

You all may not find this applicable to the conversation, but I think it is.

Recently a supermarket chain in my area has introduced self-serve checkout counters. Basically there are 4 self-serve machines and an island for one cashier. He/she is there to punch in the produce price and check ID's for alcohol or handle any problems a customer may have using the machine. I like the self-serve machines. They seem to be less time consuming and make the checkout process faster.

Now the supermarket has effectively outsourced three cashier positions to the machines.

Do you two think this practice should be abolished?

[RockyMtnMan]

Checkers pay no taxes and probably only have a high school education (or are retirees). They also have little to zero disposable income and invest hardly anything. I would not compare the net loss to an engineer that probably pays more in taxes than they make all year and puts money into a 401k account.

[Dialup Llama]

> I like the self-serve machines. They seem to be less time consuming and make the checkout process faster.

Shoplifters like them a lot too. That is why in these self serve lanes they have to station people to watch you to make sure you ring up your own purchases. So much for cost savings.

[HIDEK6]

Now the supermarket has effectively outsourced three cashier positions to the machines.

Do you two think this practice should be abolished?

I just love the self-service checkout.

It beats dealing with a teenager with an attitude.

[Lazamataz]

Do you two think this practice should be abolished?

No.

Nor do I say that offshore outsourcing should be abolished.

Now, I have a question for you, my high-school chum: If almost all the jobs related to manufacturing are nearly wiped-out as a profession in America; and if we are offshoring (and thusly not doing) accounting, engineering, software, call-center work, reading and interpreting medical data, financial planning, and soon enough medical doctor and lawyering work; and if immigrants are doing transportation, agriculture, and the remaining other low-tech work; and if robotics will be completely eliminating 90% of retail sales jobs with RFID technology and self-checkout lanes.....

.....what will we be doing?

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

There is a difference between offshoring jobs to another country and simple modernization.
Consider, there will be an American field service technician (because machines break), an American manufacturing plant with American engineers and computer s/w engineers who all have jobs to create the modernization.
The unemployed former American cashiers can very easily be retrained for a better career.
But, how does a nation retrain millions of offshored degreed engineers with (in some cases) decades of experience? The most experienced are being replaced first, (Sun Microsystems has a class action lawsuit right now for age discrimination - they fired all the really experienced engineers and replaced them with young Indians).
In offshoring, America loses all around. In modernization, America gains all around. There is no comparison.

[SamAdams76]

No, I don't think self-serve checkouts should be abolished. Self-service gas stations replaced gas attendants. I don't want to go back to some stranger messing with my car everytime I need gas. ATMs replaced bank tellers. I don't want to go back to standing in line at the bank just so I can cash a check or take out some money (remember those days?). The Internet is putting a lot of people out of work such as travel agents, but I don't want to sit in some hard plastic chair for a half-hour anymore booking my next cruise.

I prefer using the supermarket self-checkouts because I get through much faster than if a gum-snapping teenager rang up my purchases. Also, they always seem to get stuck for one reason or another. Either the machine runs out of tape or they need to get a price-check. Odd that I've never had this issue with the self-checkouts.

Speaking of supermarkets, my pet peeve is the baggers. Now I used to bag groceries at a supermarket when I was a teenager and I remember working quickly and efficiently and I was always done at just the time the cashier was ringing up the purchase. Now they are so freaking slow! Nine times out of 10, the cashier has to help with the bagging after ringing up the purchases because the witless bagger got backed up. When I bag my groceries at the self-checkout, I probably get it down in 1/3 the time. I am also not afraid to fill the bags to the top. So my groceries fit in five or six paper bags intead of a dozen and a half plastic bags - another pet peeve of mine. Plastic grocery bags suck! And it really annoys me when the bagger bleats "Paper or plastic" and gets visibly annoyed when I say paper.

[harpseal]

Now the supermarket has effectively outsourced three cashier positions to the machines.

As pointed out on another thread the supermarket has not outsourced they have invested in productivity here in the USA. The key is to make the investment in american workers productivity more likely. Tariffs are one of the means of achieving that goal. Tariffs are Constitutional and should be so used. This was also pointed out on another thread which you did not answer.

[EnDinNJ]

"Do you two think this practice should be abolished?"

You didnt ask me but I have to throw my 2 cents in anyway. There's a difference between technological replacement which has always existed in the US and sending our jobs overseas in the interest of short term corproate profits.

You cant justify everything by smacking a "free market" or "capitalisim" label on it. The fed is in the position to do something about this and their first responsibility is to the US citizens, not US corporations. They need to lower taxes and regulations on business domestically and impose tarrifs on outsourcing or at the very least outsourcing that is returned to the US.

[raybbr]

I like them because they are friendlier than the cashiers.

[Mini-14]

Now the supermarket has effectively outsourced three cashier positions to the machines

Your use of the word "outsourced" is incorrect in this statement. You have described technological innovation, not the practice of replacing U.S. workers with foreign workers.

[Petruchio]

Recently a supermarket chain in my area has introduced self-serve checkout counters. Basically there are 4 self-serve machines and an island for one cashier. He/she is there to punch in the produce price and check ID's for alcohol or handle any problems a customer may have using the machine. I like the self-serve machines. They seem to be less time consuming and make the checkout process faster.

They did that here too. I refuse to use them. Do they lower the price if you use self serve checkout? No. So, in effect you are paying the store for you to do the work for them. Part of the price of the goods is the wages of the checkout clerk and the bagger. If you do that work and the cost does not change, that is extra profit for the store that they have not earned.

I ain't that stupid.

[RnMomof7]

Now the supermarket has effectively outsourced three cashier positions to the machines.

We do not use them if there is a human option.

We are trying to do our little part to preserve the middle class.

[Trickyguy]

I'll explain basic economics to you, since you
apparently don't have a clue. Taxes, the deficit, long-term monetary
inflation, and regulations are so bad in the US that
high-paying jobs are being driven off-shore. It's as simple
as that. If people want these jobs to come back, there
has to be massive--and I mean MASSIVE--cuts in taxes.
Like 80 percent for everyone. Job destroying regulations
have to be cut, inflation has to stopped, and the
deficit gotten rid of. If not, the exporting of
jobs will continue.

[BradyLS]

Now the supermarket has effectively outsourced three cashier positions to the machines.

Check the math again: Three machines and every customer!

[mamelukesabre]

What keeps the cusomers from putting some items in grocery bags without ringing them up? It seems to me that people would start cheating and, oh say, not ring up about every third item in their shopping cart.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

I don't think this is a relevant analogy, Dane. The issue in the article is outsourcing jobs to foreigners who will settle for less pay than their American counterparts. In your example, technology--not foreigners--has seemingly supplanted the services of several cashiers. Technology is always changing the nature of work. But it's simplistic to think that those 3 displaced cashiers are now fired because of the new self-service machines. Somebody needs to program the machines, service the machines, etc. And maybe those cashiers are now free to rise in the organization to supervisor or whatever. It doesn't necessarily follow, in your example, that those cashiers are out of work. In the case of the article at hand, US workers are most DEFINITELY out of work--the nature of the work hasn't changed, but cheaper foreign workers have been found as substitutes. And that's what is inherently unfair.