Fast Food Labor Strike

[Uncle Ted]

Even unskilled labor in China is being replaced with robots...

Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, known for assembling Apple's iPhones and iPads in China, plans to use more robots, with one report saying the company will use one million of them in the next three years, to cope with rising labor costs.

Foxconn's move highlights an increasing trend toward automation among Chinese companies as labor issues such as high-profile strikes and workers' suicides plague firms in sectors from autos to technology.


Contract manufacturers such as Foxconn, which also counts Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Nokia among its clients, are moving parts of their manufacturing to inland Chinese cities or other emerging markets.


They are also boosting research and development investments to lift their thin margins.


"Workers' wages are increasing so quickly that some companies can't take it longer," said Dan Bin, a fund manager at Shenzhen-based Eastern Bay Investment Management, which invests in technology and consumer-related shares in China and Hong Kong.


"Automation is a general trend in many sectors in China, such as electronics. Of course some companies will consider moving their manufacturing overseas, but it's easier said than done when the supply chain is here."


The China Business News on Monday quoted Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou as saying the company planned to use 1 million robots within three years, up from about 10,000 robots in use now and an expected 300,000 next year.
[...]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...77016B20110801

[Sizzle]

I think that the schools do our children a huge disservice when it comes to talking about work. They keep telling the kids over and over again, beating into their heads, that they should find a job that they love. To be honest, I don't disagree in the long-term. But short-term, sometimes they just need to have a job.

I have a daughter who was extremely picky about where she might work - because she didn't "love" the idea of any of the jobs. She's now working p/t while going to school, but it took some talking for her to understand a few basic concepts. I now have a son who wants to get paid - and we're starting to have these same conversations.

Essentially I tell him - there are 2 reasons that people pay you to do a job. 1 - they pay you to do something that they don't want to do for themselves. 2 - they pay you to do something that they cannot do for themselves. Usually #2 means that you have some form of skill or knowledge that they lack.

So - if you're a kid in Jr. High or High school - chances are that the skills and knowledge you possess that someone would pay you to use for their benefit is pretty narrow in scope. And it is pretty rare that youth get paid for #2. So, if you want to get paid - you're going to have to find a job doing something that someone else doesn't want to do for themselves, and which you don't mind doing for them for the amount they are willing to pay you.

Normally we have to have this conversation more than once before they start to get it.

"I don't know what's better, getting laid or getting paid...
I just know when I'm getting one, the other's getting away..."

--Kanye West

[RC Vikings]

Fast food workers would be smart to acquire a skill as well. I suggest they think about becoming robot technicians.

On a related note two of the local potato packing sheds are updating their equipment to eliminate some jobs. One is spending $1.2 million and the other just over $2 million. With higher labor costs and increased healthcare cost it just makes sense to go with more automation.

[wuapinmon]

I'm doubtful the minimum wage has kept pace with inflation. However, I'm also doubtful that giving some of the people you speak of, the people who are too dumb or cripplingly unintelligent, more money to manage is going to result in a better outcome.

I fully recognize that this is a gross oversimplification of most scenarios, but so is thinking that by raising minimum wage to $15 an hour is going to fix the problem of underemployment.

For the record, I'm not advocating raising the minimum wage to $15 or anything close to it. I think policymakers need data like Indy gave us, and this needs to be resolved via an automatic adjustment procedure to end this olympic debate. As for giving dumb people more money, and whether or not they'll do better with more, this is America. I'll let you decide what that means. I'm not really sure either.

[The_Douger]

We're eliminating jobs at our clinic right now. We bought some lab machines that eliminate the need to have lab technicians around at night. That's 2 night positions that will eventually be eliminated at four hours per night and Sat mornings, so 2 part time jobs. They'll make their money back on the machines for what it would cost to employ the people to run the stuff after about six months.

[SCcoug]

Like ER I'm having a hard time imagining how the economy as we know it would work if 90% of the work done today could be automated. Who would buy the goods and services if hardly any is working? Although I guess someone would have said something similar back when agriculture was 90% of the the labor force.

[Sizzle]

On a related note two of the local potato packing sheds are updating their equipment to eliminate some jobs. One is spending $1.2 million and the other just over $2 million. With higher labor costs and increased healthcare cost it just makes sense to go with more automation.

By spending $2M, they are essentially buying 266,666 hours of minimum wage employees. Or, almost a years worth of work for just over 128 minimum wage employees, assuming a 40-hour work week and 52 weeks in a year.

[RC Vikings]

By spending $2M, they are essentially buying 266,666 hours of minimum wage employees. Or, almost a years worth of work for just over 128 minimum wage employees, assuming a 40-hour work week and 52 weeks in a year.

The one spending $1.2 million told me they would eliminate 15 jobs and have a four to five year payoff. All these jobs are filled by Spanish workers who have all the right paperwork but I'm sure most are illegal.

[ERCougar]

Like ER I'm having a hard time imagining how the economy as we know it would work if 90% of the work done today could be automated. Who would buy the goods and services if hardly any is working? Although I guess someone would have said something similar back when agriculture was 90% of the the labor force.

By having a living wage for all of us.
The industrial revolution isn't really analagous, IMO, because in the very near future, robots should be able to replicate everything that a human can do, even creative tasks, and do them better. If you can't imagine most, if not all, of your current job duties being automated to a robot, you're not very aware of the capabilities of technology. There's a real resource allocation problem coming and I certainly don't want to set the precedent of "let the market determine what you're worth" to solve it.

[imanihonjin]

By having a living wage for all of us.
The industrial revolution isn't really analagous, IMO, because in the very near future, robots should be able to replicate everything that a human can do, even creative tasks, and do them better. If you can't imagine most, if not all, of your current job duties being automated to a robot, you're not very aware of the capabilities of technology. There's a real resource allocation problem coming and I certainly don't want to set the precedent of "let the market determine what you're worth" to solve it.

Because letting a person in DC decide what you are worth is a much better solution? Come to think of it, maybe we can have a robot make these determinations since they will be so apt to do everything else.

[ERCougar]

Because letting a person in DC decide what you are worth is a much better solution? Come to think of it, maybe we can have a robot make these determinations since they will be so apt to do everything else.

Yes, it is better than starving. Which is about what you or your kids will be worth to the market in 2063.

[SCcoug]

By having a living wage for all of us.
The industrial revolution isn't really analagous, IMO, because in the very near future, robots should be able to replicate everything that a human can do, even creative tasks, and do them better. If you can't imagine most, if not all, of your current job duties being automated to a robot, you're not very aware of the capabilities of technology. There's a real resource allocation problem coming and I certainly don't want to set the precedent of "let the market determine what you're worth" to solve it.

Yeah, Martin Ford among others are advocates of a minimum income to counter massive displacement by automation. It sounds good on the other side but living through that shock doesn't sound nice.

[imanihonjin]

Yes, it is better than starving. Which is about what you or your kids will be worth to the market in 2063.

I see.....so when a problem happens we leave it to the almighty government to solve all of our problems. Got it. We should essentially cede all our liberties to the government to protect us from any misfortune....especially given its spectacular performance on programs it currently operates.

[ERCougar]

I see.....so when a problem happens we leave it to the almighty government to solve all of our problems. Got it. We should essentially cede all our liberties to the government to protect us from any misfortune....especially given its spectacular performance on programs it currently operates.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

[wuapinmon]

I see.....so when a problem happens we leave it to the almighty government to solve all of our problems. Got it. We should essentially cede all our liberties to the government to protect us from any misfortune....especially given its spectacular performance on programs it currently operates.