The labor market operates on supply and demand. It doesn’t care how much you spent on your education, all it cares about is how much it has to pay to get someone who can do the job well. I get this argument from friends and family in the education field all the time, it’s not fair you make so much more then teachers, we have advanced degrees out the whazoo and you don’t. To which I reply, you should have stopped by the economics department and had them explain how the labor market works to you while you were there.
Agree on many points. My point was the example person we were talking about working a min wage job who can’t make ends meet because of their debt, dont show up in the unemployment statistic. But they are the ones agitating for a higher min wage so they can make their payments and have a life.
That should be taught in high school.
Why? Out of the goodness of their heart? I have a friend that works at Walmart. Raised 2 kids from about 2 to through college as a single parent without child support on what they made from Wal-Mart. Sounds like a living wage to me.
McDonalds may be highly profitable, as a corporation, but the franchisee’s are operating on slim margins. And their product isn’t very price elastic, how much do you think a quarter-pounder has to go up in price before everyone goes to Five Guys instead?
It will set you back one to two million to open a Mcdonald’s and you can expect around a 150K in profit. How much do you think that can be cut before you just stick the money in the market instead to come out better?
It was in mine.
You keep making the mistake of thinking automation is some fixed cost that a company pays one time for. The on-going maintenance, programming, replacement, etc results in on-going costs.
The self serve kiosks that are available now aren’t there to save the company money, they are there for customer convenience.
The same is true for self checkouts at the grocery store. They don’t actually save the company any money, #1 due to maintenance costs, #2 due to shrinkage aka theft.
So no automation won’t solve the issue of people demanding to be paid a wage they can actually live on.
Lucky you. In many schools it is not.
If you ask me it’s already a bad investment, it’s a full time job to run one, so, that 150k is both a yearly salary and a return on your capital, that is not a good use of that much capital.
Absolutely they’re accounted for the in the U6 report.
Agreed. Not only is it a full time job, you’re working 60+ hours a week and dealing with low paid employees who don’t care if you succeed or fail.
As a teacher, it sounds more like they knew very well they weren’t going to be millionaires going in, but rather that, given what we typically as of teachers, we could certainly offer them better pay.
I certainly wouldn’t balk at higher pay, but I’m lucky to live in a low cost of living area.
I’m quite happy with what I have-a small, 3-acre homestead, 2 dogs, a nearly paid-off vehicle, food, water, electricity. But there’s always going to be a tiny little part of me that laments the fact that, as a teacher, there’s an economic ceiling I’ll never be able to break through. There are things I’ll never own, and places, I’ll never get to see, etc. And I don’t blame anyone for that, nor do I hold a grudge against those who do get those things. I guess, if anything, it’s a subtle reminder of how my profession is regarded and what my place is in this society.
Minimum wage went to 14 dollars here and guess what McDonalds is still hiring people.
The minimum wage hike does good as people are spending more money and in some cases investing more.
Stagnant wages were discussed as a major problem during the Obama admin. Every time a DOL report that showed wage stagnation it was brought up for discussion.
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Yes out of the goodness of their heart. Follow the Costco model
Umm no
from McDonald's Automation Push Is Great News for Investors | The Motley Fool
McDonald’s hasn’t given much color on the expenses of adding self-order stations, but comments from Wendy’s management could provide some insight. Wendy’s Chief Information Officer David Trimm has indicated that franchisees will pay roughly $15,000 for three ordering kiosks, and he anticipates that it will take less than two years for the benefits created by self-ordering kiosks to offset the investment. The timeline to break even is probably similar for McDonald’s franchisees, and the benefits of kiosks will likely become more pronounced with time
Easterbrook has been careful when commenting on the likelihood of new technologies that will eliminate jobs, but competitors including Wendy’s and CKE Restaurants have directly linked their respective automation efforts to rising labor costs, touting the benefits of smaller in-store headcounts.
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And that is with current wage levels, increasing pay to $15 an hour would speed that break even point up substantially.
Lol…that’s it…spin it
For now, meanwhile they are starting to roll out their replacements.
Did you purposely leave out the other pertinent information in that article?
Such as
“Shifting to this new technology requires that stores continue to employ cashiers to assist with the new process and cater to customers who prefer traditional service.”
and “leaving employees free to take on other roles.”
Aka, they aren’t replacing workers, just shifting them to other positions, Same thing Walmart did when they started installing self checkouts. They are still gonna pay that $15 when it comes around.
