I see automated check-out lines all over the place. A few years ago, I seldom saw any.
In the intervening years, we’ve had lots of pressure on Walmart to raise wages, lots of talk about paying a “living wage,” and lots of talk of raising the minimum wage.
Retailers all over are preparing to phase out many low paying jobs. They are doing this because of the political pressure to raise wages.
I was in a grocery store the other night. I worked there as a kid in the 80’s. At the time they could typically staff enough cashiers to open most of the front checkouts, and enough baggers to keep up with most of them. As well as some clerks to straighten the shelves.
The other night there were two registers open, no baggers.
Counting the office, meat counter and deli, there could not have been ten employees in the whole place, tops.
Already, Walmart has started to increase the number of self-checkout counters even in the Sacramento, CA area. We could see Walmart stores with mostly self-checkout stands within five years at the rate things are going.