A Worrying trend in Argos

Shelflife

Pythia wrote: »

Trust me, online banking is not why that bank closed.

Pythia im well aware that thats not the actual reason as to why it closed, i just found it weird that a turkey would vote for christmas.

Just Mary im well aware that we cant stop nor should we stop technological advancement, its just bizarre that those who complain about unemployment, loss of interaction and sales advice will be the first to use these machines.

In the same way a couple who attended a local meeting about the possibility of a local village losing the post office and were adament that it would be a travesty if it was lost then admitted that they got their pension paid direct into their bank rather than collect it in the post office.

All im saying is that we cant complain that the fox killed the chickens if we leave the gate wide open for him.

doolox

...and approaching earning a living differently as services such as banking, retailing etc join primary production (mining and agriculture) and manufacturing as being only able to employ about 5 or 10% of the available workforce.

For the foreseeable future casual work and intermittent spells of no work will become the norm for more people so that the stigma attached to unemployment now will become less as more people are affected by it.

People will have to plan for this. Long term commited debt, such as mortgages will probably shrink or become much more flexible as people will not be able to guarantee regular payments like they could in the secure jobs of the past. People will probably have to have multiple skills and many part-time job assignments to make up the money. Government may have to intervene in redistributing wealth but will be hampered by the mobility of people and cash to low-tax countries. The nation-states may have to get together to form an agreement on minimum levels of tax and services to prevent the ghettoisation of the world into high tax, high welfare states and low-tax low welfare states.
People will have to change their jobs and sectors more often and reeducate themselves more often, the government here is just copping on to this with their Springboard initiative. They also need to regulate the WPPS schemes more so that real education and experience is gained and not just free labour for the employers. A third party, to advocate for the rights and entitlements of the workers and ensure the quality and verifiability of their training, is badly needed otherwise abuses will happen.

It is disturbing that the govt are "happy" with new projects hiring 50 to about 150 people as good news for job creation whereas in the past job creation projects could count on hiring 500 to 1,000 people. New jobs tend to be for high ranking graduates with little or nothing for the averagely educated.

It is also disturbing that the Western Democracies, while celebrating the fall of Communism, haven't realised yet the huge flaws in unregulated Free-Market systems that they seem to have favoured over the last 10-20 yrs.....they have failed just as miserably but most people haven't realised it yet.

Our problems were caused by a blind faith in the Market forces, by blind obedience to advisors who lead us all into a property and investment bubble and by lack of planning to develop and educate our future workforce. We relied too much on craft trade building to employ our, mostly male, "average" attainers. Now they are unemployed in their thousands.

Average attainers on the female side could relay on jobs in offices and supermarkets but these are becoming increasingly automated. Direct sales and consultancies, such as beauticians , hairdressing etc.. can only employ a limited number, where will the rest go??

This problem of arbitrating who gets what slice of the national, or international "cake", what work is really all about, was "solved" in the last depression in the 30's by the outbreak of WW2. We can't afford as a planet to repeat that mistake again.

efb

Someone will be needed to design, program, update and maintain these machines.

At lest the machines dont look more disinterested than the cashiers!

KMFCross

Solair wrote: »

They've had those at Argos in Mahon Point and at Blackpool Retail Park in Cork for about the last 2 or even 3 years.

Stores with automatic checkouts:

Tesco - everywhere pretty much.
B&Q (Cork anyway)
Argos
Superquinn (first to introduce them with SuperScan handheld scanners over 10 years ago!)
Dunnes Stores - They have them in Patrick's Street in Cork anyway.

Automatic checkouts are going to become a lot more prevalent as the technology's well proven and getting cheaper.

SuperValu also have self checkout systems too, in Tuam, Churchstown, Carrickmacross & Ballisodare.

doolox

Yes, people will be needed to maintain, service, update and install new technology in retail and other service providers premises and, more increasingly, on-line. The numbers of people employed will be small and it still leaves our education and people formation functions (career development, job placement, recruitment etc..) with a huge problem in coping with the huge numbers of people who have lost jobs in shrinking sectors and have fallen off the edge in terms of being able to compete for scarce jobs with younger, better educated people.

In my situation I worked in computer technology at a junior level for 30 years and left my last job on voluntary redundancy as the work was becoming a struggle with constant change, more demands, no pay-rises, performance issues etc.

Having the time to get myself sorted out I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome in 2009 and it went along way to explaining my preference for working on my own, dislike for supervisory, management roles or teamwork although I would have the raw knowledge and brainpower for such roles....I wouldn't have the innate social skills absolutely necessary for such roles. Trouble is that a lot of existing managers and supervisors, hired purely on their academic qualifications, do not have those social skills but thats another story......

I find myself at a crossroads in terms of leaving the tech sector completely, to get into some other area where I can do better or returning to education to improve my chances. Age is against me in that I only have 14 years more to work at best and any degree takes at least 4 years fulltime and about 20k in fees.....a lot of money to put down on an outside chance.

jimmycrackcorm

Soby wrote: »

Well not really if they have one person covering 4 self service tills.That is 3 less people serving at a normal till

It's a glass half empty / full scenario. My experience in Argos is that now there are extra "tills" instead but I don't have to queue like I used to except for home delivery items.

leeroybrown

I was in Argos on Sunday and tried out one of their new automated tills. They work really well and I'd be happy to use them again.

Corruptedmorals

highlydebased wrote: »

It's the only Dunnes that has them AFAIK. They claim they "take away from the personal experience"....

If you call having to queue for ages because they have so few checkouts open and no self scans then that beats me!

Stephen's Green does also, it has 4, though you are right- there definitely isn't more than 2/3 dunnes in the country with them- as well as being very understaffed of course.

SoaringPanda

It is crazy to think that the prospect for part-time work for college students and others will diminish over the coming years due to these machines. The new Argos stores for example allow customers to do everything themselves, from finding info about a product, to ordering into the store if it's out of stock and purchasing it if it is. You can't blame the company for wanting to cut costs but it's **** to think that the personnel touch will be gone and I know from having worked in retail myself that many employees do try and help customers to the best of their ability and give good service with a personnel touch.

I got through college by working part-time in retail and it's given me good experience. I hate to think how future generations will manage. It seems were destined to have a large amount of disaffected youth as the number of jobs diminishes as the population grows.

ordinary_girl

highlydebased wrote: »

It's the only Dunnes that has them AFAIK

The Dunnes in Tallaght has them, as does the grocery section of the Dunnes on Henry Street.

Eric Cartman

an automatic checkout pays for itself in 1 year , is more reliable than most retail staff (no offence , I know there are good ones but weve all had mates in their teens and 20s working retail whod just call in sick for the craic) and you only need 1 person to look after 8-10 tills , its automation at its finest

the secret in this life to making money is to replace people with machines or eliminate their position alltogether. If you can invent an automated system that replaces people youll never need to complain here ever again

Shelflife

Eric theres no doubt that the maths stack up and that in theory the machine may be more effiecient, it just suprises me that the very people who complain about job losses and automation are those that will actively use these machines.

as i said earlier turkeys voting for christmas.

RATM

I've heard that the supermarket industry is now working on laser & x-ray technology that will scan all the barcodes without the need to take any items out of your shopping trolley. So within the next few years there'll be only need for a few staff at the tills to sort out anything that goes wrong.

Then they'll most likely move onto robots for re-stocking the shelves- considering they already build cars its no great stretch of the imagination to concieve of robots re-stocking shelves at night time.

When you think of it there isn't many jobs in retail that can't be automated in some form or other.