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Walmart Is Cutting 7,000 Jobs Due To Automation (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Yahoo: The clairvoyant folks over at the World Economic Forum warned of a "Fourth Industrial Revolution" involving the rise of the machine in the workforce, and the latest company to lend credence to that claim is none other than Walmart, which is planning on cutting 7,000 jobs on account of automation. But the Walmart decision may be a bit more alarming for those in the workforce. As the Wall Street Journal reports (Warning: may be paywalled), the most concerning aspect of America's largest private employer might be that the eliminated positions are largely in the accounting and invoicing sectors of the company. These jobs are typically held by some of the longest tenured employees, who also happen to take home higher hourly wages. Now, those coveted positions are being automated. The Journal reports that beginning in 2017, much of this work will be addressed by "a central office or new money-counting 'cash recycler' machines in stores." Earlier this year, the company tested this change across some 500 locations. "We've seen many make smooth transitions during the pilot," said Deisha Barnett, a Walmart spokeswoman.
Everything is not rosy with Walmart's penchant to do away with workers. One thing is an exploding crime problem at their stores because there is not enough personnel around. Who wants to go shopping in a crime zone? That and a popular local Walmart has an extremely hard time keeping the store shelves stocked. It's wonderful to have low prices, but I usually am wasting my time going there only to see empty shelves.
So disposing of workers only goes so far. I simply do not believe that our android workers will arrive in the near future to mitigate these problems created by lack of workers.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I'm sorry, but you've got that wrong:
Ford didn't implement the 40 hour workweek until 1926.
http://www.politifact.com/trut...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
You are welcome on my lawn.
And there is no economic model to tell us how that is going to work. But, not far in the future - many of us will see it, if we don't kill ourselves off first, all manual labor will be automated. And soon after that there will be no labor required to produce any products - production and distribution will be totally automated. At that point labor will have no value and our world economy will cease to exist.
guaranteed minimum income
Never going to happen in this country. The status quo hangs on to their ideology like a junkie and his heroin. When the pitchforks come out then maybe, but I suspect the 1%, once they finish strip mining this country, will flee leaving us to rot.
Another day closer to redwood heaven
This benefits all shareholders, of which the Waltons are the largest.
Do you own index or mutual funds in a 401(k) account to fund your retirement? If yes, the "blood" is on your hands, too. You proportionally benefit as much as the Waltons when jobs are cut and money is freed up for other purposes, including returning it to the people who own the enterprise.
Anyone here a California public employee counting on a pension? How do you think CalPERS is going to achieve those rosy 7% returns to fund the payments to future retirees? Dividends, share repurchases, and growth from allocating retained earnings -- the shareholders own this money, after all -- in value-additive projects. Cutting the fat is one way of freeing up additional free cash for these purposes.
I think it's interesting how millions of Americans are shareholders who benefit from these moves as much as the fat cats.
In some ways the goalposts have moved but not in a simple linear progression. Because of technology, the poor can have cheap TVs and phones. But in trade, they now cannot afford a place to call home. If they tried the popular solution from the middle ages of pick out an un-occupied spot and build a house, the city would come arrest them and bulldoze the place. They can no-longer make a job for themselves by planting on the commons and selling whatever surplus they grow (In many places, you are not even permitted to plant crops on the land you own).
An income is no longer optional, but the ability to have an income is not guaranteed.
As has always been the case, the nobility doesn't trouble itself with these things.
Actually for almost 80% of the population, you are wrong.
Ability to afford a new car, a new house, a college education, high quality clothing, high quality food has been falling since 1980.
The top 20% are doing fine.
Having a smart phone doesn't make up for eating poorly (lotsa cheap carbs- no nutrients), being unable to get decent housing ($160,000 even 25 miles from town try buying that on $35k a year after taxes), or decent clothing (cheap knits that shred in a few years-- if that long).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"The reason the economy rises is that the AVERAGE person has more ability to consume than prior."
You know that thingie called statistics. If I have one million in the bank and the other nine have zero, we all AVERAGE 100K in the bank. Still no good for those other nine.
"people will always find work"
What's that? the fifth law of thermodinamics, or something?
No, man, sorry: for most of History, people was absolutely unable to find work and it was more that a short elite forced them into work. What if that short elite has no work for them anymore?
"The 1% will make sure that people have propensity to consume. It's the natural order"
Again, have you ever opened a History book? Was a consumist society the "natural order" of ancient Egipt, or Greece, or Rome, or Middle Ages, or pre-revolution Europe? Was it the "natural order" along imperial Chine, traditional Japan, most Africa history or precolombine America?
Looking at the History book, it seems much more that your "natural order", if any, is for an elite taking benefit of most of the goodies squeezed out of a mass of people let just above the starving level. What if that elite manages not to need that mass of people to squeeze their goodies anymore?