Do supermarket self-scanners cost jobs?

[notenoughsocks]

Hello all.
Was going to post this in AIBU, but thought I would probably get a more helpful response over here.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to avoid using the self-scan machines at supermarkets. I hate, hate, hate using them becuase I have always assumed that they take jobs from real people.
However I can't seem to get a straight answer on this from the till-workers I ask about it. They all definatley hate the machines and half-imply that they are costing jobs. But more so, they seem to hate working with the machines. They all say that they find it much more stressful to over-see eight machines (which seems to be the standard) than to work at the one till. I assume they get no more money for this either and suspect that over time, their wages might even be driven down because the of the removal of their jobs.

I have come across some counter-arguments suggesting that their is no net job loss as this move is creating more hi-tech, better paying jobs in those areas that create the self-scan machines. But, even if I was to let myself belive this, I would still think that it is 'women's' jobs that are being taken away and replaced by the sort of jobs that men are more likely to get.

Any solid information would be gratefully recieved (I have a slowly forming idea of a sticker campaign or something like it).

[NoSeriously]

I hate that they look so clever and such a good idea and ooh wouldn't that be quick to just to pop to one of them....

two hours later you have a machine shouting unidentified item in the baging station and you've had to have someone pop over 5 times because you bought reduced items from the "whoops" aisle in ASDA and the machine cant (won't?) read them

[MoreBeta]

I suppose it is a similar arguement as to when bank cash machines came in.

However, I really do not think those machines in banks that are designed to take cash and cheque deposits are an improvement or more efficient. I always strugggle with the ones in our local branch and they often go worong like the self serve scanners in supermarkets.

In fact just like the self serve scanner sin supermarkets they seem to take a lot of quite expert fairly highly trained staff to supervise them.

[TheCrackFox]

I refuse to use the self service tills - Tesco will have us bloody stacking the shelves next. They make trillions every year so the least they can do is to employ someone to take my money off me.

Even if I am just buying a loaf of bread I just take a trolley.

On a serious note there are lots of people (normally elderly) who can go whole days without speaking to someone. Sometimes that till operator is the only social interaction they will get all week.

[JLK2]

Supermarkets cost people jobs in the first place. How far back do you want to go?

[JuliaScurr]

The argument that it's luddite was used with opo buses. The conducters were taken off, info, help and safety massively reduced. But the buses still ran, just a much reduced level of service. This will happen to everything else too.

[notenoughsocks]

Yes, good points leares (:'you can't fight technological advances and to do so would be to encourage inefficiency and damage economic competitiveness') and
JLK2 ('supermarkets cost people jobs in the first place. How far back do you want to go?) and the other person who made the point about litter. I do honestly recognise the validity of your arguments and have to also recognise that CKnipples and MS do sound quite reasonable in their approach.

I suppose, in response to that sort of general argument I am asking: 'How far foward are we willing to push it'. I mean, where does this sort of logic go?

I am working through my thoughts on this, so sorry if this all sounds a bit confused.

I think the human contact point is very important. Surely we should value this more some how?

Also, I do find it difficult to be dispassionate about women losing their jobs.

I sense there may also be a sort of economic argument going on here to. The drive for profit and efficiency ultimately leading to where?


If anybody can bear making any more comments, they would be gratefully received. I really would like to get my thoughts straight on this. It is an issue I am faced with in a small way every day. On the ocassions I have been forced to use self-service machines I don't really have any difficulties. I find them quite quick and easy. But I do miss dealing with an actual person, and, as I said in the OP, most of all I hate the fact that I am effectively helping to boost an outlets efficiency/profit at the cost of jobs.

[MsWeatherwax]

WilsonFrickett the stamping bit is yes, but the conversation you have with the customer might not be. It's often an opportunity to point people to resources and information that they don't know about, sometimes important ones (we do a little of that here on Mumsnet, but a lot of the people in the library don't have internet access). It's often overlooked, the interaction between one person issuing a book and the patron taking the chance to start a conversation about their loneliness, recent bereavement, or financial or parenting woes, and the help that the person behind the counter can afford with that.

[notenoughsocks]

MsWeatherwax
I think thats partly the (or one of the) point(s). It is easy to regard the stuff of human interaction as tangential or irrelevnat. But it is central and important.

[Matronalia]

If people are that concerned about the human interaction then why not use all the little independent shops which the supermarkets are putting out of business. Our local butcher, grocer, fishmonger, charity shops etc they all recognise me and DC and we have a chat every time I go in. It was a lifesaver when I was drowning in PND and so lonely in a new area, I didn't get that at a till in Sainsburys and we live in a pretty large town, not a village.

Self-service is a godsend for me though in the supermarket, especially with the DCs in the pushchair. Instead of loading up the basket, unloading it whilst dealing with DD's questions and DS's whinges, making sure the pushchair isn't in anyones way, making sure DS isn't patting the bottom of the customer in front or exploring their handbag, repacking it (often at high speed), paying and navigating the narrow way out past all the other tills I can scan, pack and pay in less than five minutes. Much less stress for me and means I can get an unpleasant job done much faster.

[MoreBeta]

The thing is, while scanners do cost checkout jobs, I suspect that online food deliveries have actually increased the amount of jobs in supermarkets.

I mostly shop for groceries online and someone picks my goods off a shelf for me, scans them, loads them on to a truck and driver brinsg them to me.

Innovation happens all the time and new jobs are created as old ones are lost.

[ChickenLickn]

Its not a technological advance, it just means the customer doing the scanning rather than the employee.

If I wanted to work on a checkout I would fill out the application form.

[WidowWadman]

juliascurres excuse my youthful ignorance, but what do you need conductors for?

[SexyDomesticatedDab]

Not read it all and can't believe posting in feminism!! - it would affect any employee.

I would tend to agree its a way of reducing cost for the employer and so could be argued it keeps costs down for the consumer.

I'm sure it won't be too long until the bar code is replaced with a cheap RF tag - so effectively no scanning would be needed the whole shop would be 'scanned' at once and payment direct to your 'store card' that you have assigned to pay for everything.

In France notice that firstly all the customer have to weigh and price up the fruit and veg (something which started here and then fizzled out). Even the self scan stuff in some supermarkets got dropped so I assume that there is a feedback mechanism if you like.

How many of us take time to complain to a supermarket though or do we just accept it? I've taken to quite regularly complaining about a food product that was not up top standard and even once wrote to the supermarket that every Saturday morning it was full of the stacking trolleys.

On the one hand we use supermarkets quite a bit but I still like to use a local butcher and if we had a decent greengrocer / fish monger would use that.

Comparing UK shops with a typical French one further - typically they don't keep changing the layout (which I find Uk ones do with too much regularity), you don't get free bags - get used to providing all your own. The fresh sections (butcher, fish and baker) seem to be at a higher level than equivalent UK ones (more like our better independents). I also noticed on all the visits their the till staff are all female.

[JuliaScurr]

widow aspparently, people like conductors and park attendants are as effective at deterring crime as police because they are seen as being responsible for the facility. It's called 'soft authority' or something. Also conductors assist with luggage, information etc. Overall, people feel safer.

[JLK2]

Yes they should bring back the "clippies" like on "On the Buses". They were all female too.

[AirstripOne]

It's the creative destruction that is capitalism.

There's a newly opened Sainsbury's Local store that I sometimes use where most customers seem to use the self scanners - even when the check out operator is free. The immediate area has a significant student population and a generally younger demographic, which probably goes some way towards explaining why.

[notenoughsocks]

JLK2, apologies if this answer is inappropriate but I have real problems detecting tone of voice in text. Have assumed you might be leaning towards the sarcastic?

The female clippies became a feminist issue. It was only when they started to introduce the 'one manned bus' (which negated the need for clippies) that women started to fight for the right to become bus drivers. From this point of view, the fact that women won the right to become bus drivers was a 'good thing'. But this took place at the beginning of decade when unemployment first started to rise - albeit very slowly and the numbers were very low by today's standards.
I think it was partly the growing availability of jobs and 'full employment' that helped to drive the expectation that women should work and should not remain at home as wife and mother.

As I say, I am still working all this through. But surely it may be a good idea not to get rid of as many jobs as possible in the name of increased profits/lower prices/efficiency/more development whatever. Don't jobs perhaps have worth over and above that?

BTW, I know this is only very precariously a feminist issue. I posted here because it seems to me that self-scan machines threaten women's jobs most directly. In the broader context of rising unemployment/cuts etc. it is also true to say that women are getting hit disproportionatley.

AS1 - it is interesting that you think that young people have a different attitude to self-scan. Why do you think that is?

[AirstripOne]

Two things I think. Young people are more comfortable using technology of any kind and they buy less in one shop - if you're only buying 5 items, that you're not as quick at scanning as the shop assistant doesn't matter that much if you don't have to queue; if you've got a trolley full, it's a different calculation.

Job losses don't matter that much if an equal number of new jobs are being created; the problem all Western countries face is that may no longer be the case. Probably the two greatest things that have happened in my life time are the spreading wealth to Asia and the development of the high speed internet. The flip side to both however is that so much more work can be done in other countries, while other tasks can be automated. My generation (I'm 37) has already acquired capital will be largely untouched I suspect, but I worry for today's schoolchildren.

[adamschic]

When ATM's were first introduced it was argued that people wouldn't be comfortable with lack of the human contact when doing their banking, in fact, the opposite was true and people preferred to not face someone when withdrawing cash etc.

I filled the car up tonight, it was busy and I wished I had used a pay at puump instead of having to queue inside the kiosk to pay. I think self scan is just another advance in technology which will become the norm soon.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

'Young people'?!

I take it 'young people' are never disabled, then? And always instinctively able to use technology?

Sorry, I'm sure you don't mean that as a rude generalization, but I'm afraid it was one. Would you really talk about all 'old people' in the same way?

Those scanners are very hard to use for people with certain disabilities - young or not.

[HauntyMython]

I don't use the ones in supermarkets usually because I buy a lot of reduced (yellow sticker) goods which need staff help anyway, and the whole "unexpected item in the bagging area" thing drives me mental. I use them in Boots though as they aren't so bad.

I work in a library which got self issue when it moved to a new building 3 years ago. They are great and even the elderly generally really like them! The smaller libraries are getting them and yes, it does save jobs (around 1 PT post) but due to recruitment freeze etc libraries are short staffed ATM, so they won't be losing anyone, they just won't get anyone new.

They cut down on queues and allow us to talk more to customers and help in other ways - they don't seem to do that in supermarkets, it's just a different environment I guess.

BTW our county is increasing self issue in libraries but apparently it's privately funded.

[AirstripOne]

You're right of course that my comment contained a generalisation to expand on my earlier generalisation that the self-scan in my local Sainsbury's is heavily used. Still I think it's fair to say that overall the younger you are, the more confident you are with technology. My father can't use the web, I have trouble downloading an app on to my phone and my 8 year old can't understand how either of us struggle. That's not to say there are households where the reverse is true, but there are fewer of them. To some extent we're all creatures of the age we were brought up in.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

My point isn't that most young people are disabled, though - I know you're making a generalization. I'm saying it's a bit offensive, TBH.

I'd hope we'd aspire to better provision for people, not worse, is all.

[lisianthus]

I find them annoying and don't use them.

Btw, i understand that in the US, where these things came from, supermarkets have slowly started to revert to checkouts with humans, as the self scanners are slower and less efficient and so are costing the supermarkets money.

[ChickenLickn]

I find them annoying also.

If they gave a few £ discount for doing your own scanning they would be more popular (especially for e.g. the unemployed.)

Otherwise I dont see the point of adding extra stress to my day by doing someone else's job.