low-end jobs

[cellio]

Automated alternatives to humans in the service industry have been around for a while. ATMs were probably the first widespread case of this. The real value of ATMs was the ability to interact with your bank at times when the bank wouldn't otherwise be available. I think ATMs are a real win for that reason, and the only time I visit humans in my bank is when I want to make a deposit.

More recently, I've interacted with automation that is designed to specifically replace humans rather than broadening service. The automated check-out at grocery stores is the big example here. Instead of one cashier per line, stores now need one employee per 4 or so lines. This isn't making things more convenient for customers; unlike ATMs, the scanners are only available when the store is open anyway.

There are practical reasons I tend to avoid the automated checkouts, mostly related to speed. The line for the human has to be about three times as long as the line for the machine before the machine looks like a time-saver. People may get more proficient at scanning and packing over time, of course.

But I find that even absent that consideration, I'm reluctant to use the machine. Doing so helps to eliminate a low-end job that might be the only job the job-holder is capable of doing. Most of the cashiers I see at the grocery store aren't college-age kids looking for spending money; they're middle-aged and sometimes visibly handicapped.

This is not wholly a compassion-based argument; it's also one of expedience. I think we as a society are better off if almost everyone has a productive job. And some people are only capable of the lower-end jobs that are most in danger of being automated away. (Aside: for this reason, requirements for high minimum wages are also a bad idea -- don't make it cost-ineffective to hire people at prices they're willing to work for!)

We cannot avoid automation, of course, and in many cases it's a good thing. I'm no Luddite (she says, typing on her computer :-) ). But I kind of wish that we could focus it a little differently sometimes.

And yes, sometimes the humans are annoying to deal with. Last night I lost close to ten minutes to an inept cashier, and there is one (mentally challenged) bagger who I will never again allow to touch my groceries because he seems utterly bewildered by ideas like "the bread goes on top" (multiple failures). People who aren't capable of doing the job shouldn't hold the job anyway just out of pity. (Giant Eagle was right to fire the guy who was partially eating food and then putting the package back on the shelf, and I don't care that he didn't understand that this was wrong.) But y'know, the machines aren't painless either -- just try to get a scanning error fixed. And for the most part, the people holding these jobs are quite capable and willing to work, and I find I'm rooting for the people over the machines.

Comments

[siderea]

There's a problem with your economic premise, and it's a weird-ass, frustrating psychological problem.

I'm speaking with both my anthropologist/psychologist hat on, and my Unlike Most People I Really Did Sell My Labor On The Open Labor Market Like Some S ort Of Libertarian Dream For Eleven Years.

In our culture (and for all I know other cultures as well) there's a deep, pre-conscious mapping of social status "worth" to the monetary "worth" of someone's time.

This flies in the face of High School Economi cs 101, which tells us that the price of something (such as labor) is a function of supply and demand. If the demand goes up, the price is supposed to go up.

Unfortunately, enormous number of people -- including employers -- have emotional resistance to the idea that a low status job earn over $x amount, where $x is personally determined. By "emotional resistance" I mean "would rather see their business go under".

There was a great example of this in an exchange in the Anne Landers column years ago. Someone had penned a rant about how little teachers are paid, pointing out "even" garbagemen are paid more. The wife of a garbageman wrote back a letter explaining, what a brutal, hard job it was, and how he earned his money. Yeah: more people want to be teachers than garbagemen, because it sucks even worse as a job; if there are fewer garbageman-labor-hours on the market they should cost more. Supply and demand. Labor is a commodity, too.

But people don't think that. They think the higher status a job is, the "nobler", the "more important to our society", the "better" it is, the higher it should be paid. The want the abstract value judgment of the worth of a position to society (or in society) to dictate how much that position sho u ld pay.

I cannot tell you how many times I've had the conversation with employers/clients, where they rant about the high costs of labor -- "She's only a secretary! How can we pay her more than a vice president!" -- and I've have to explain "welcome t o supply and demand". Especially during the tech boom. It was during that time that I became particularly enamored of the saying "Nothing offends an American businessman more than the sight of someone actually daring to practice capitalism."

Up the str eet from where I live, over the border into Arlington, there was a restaurant with a fantastic Sunday brunch, served buffet style. It was %50 more expensive than the average Sunday brunch in the area, but was full up both times I went. The second ti me I went, I inquired about their hours, and was told, "This is the last time we'll be open for brunch, we're giving up on it." I was agast (hate to lose a quality brunching spot) and asked why. "Can't afford waitstaff."

Hello, what? If your restauran t is full of customers and you need to pay your waitstaff more, raise your prices. But, no, apparently the thought of paying the waitstaff more caused the owner to feel "I can't afford that" instead of doing the obvious.

And (need I say it?) a couple of months after they stopped holding brunch, the business closed its doors for good.

Since these attitudes are widespread (and they are, apparently, widespread) it effects price collusion -- without any actual conspiracy. If everyone is emotionally unwilling to pay their low-status workers the market rate, to the point of being willing to go under instead, then you have de facto price fixing.

This is one of the two reasons I have come to appreciate unions. There's so much bellyaching about how unions force their industries to pay higher wages, but look what they're up against: an irrational prejudice against paying some sorts of workers in some sorts of jobs what would really be the market rate, which deforms the so-called "free market".
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(continuing to resist the urge not to argue)

[sethg]

There is a theory that employers of low-wage workers have monopsony power, i.e., there are far more people looking for work than employers looking for workers, so the few employers can hire workers for less than what they'd have to pay under perfect competition. If this theory is true, and if employers under perfect competition would be paying low-wage workers at least the minimum wage, then the minimum wage is just compensating for employers' monopsony power, and it is not responsible for unemployment.

The book Myth and Measurement argues for this theory with some empirical evidence: looking at what happened to employment statistics when one state raised its minimum wage and a neighboring state did not. Of course, not everybody is convinced.

I report, you decide.

Re: (continuing to resist the urge not to argue)

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

there are far more people looking for work than employers looking for workers

Not trying to be snarky here, but..... isn't that sort of the textbook "supply and demand"?

Re: (continuing to resist the urge not to argue)

[sethg]

"Textbook supply and demand" simply states that suppliers will be willing to produce more of something as its price goes up, and that consumers will be willing to purchase more of something as its price goes down. The issue of supply and demand is orthogonal to the issue of monopoly power.