If you grew up in the United States, then chances are your first job was making food and taking orders while receiving either at or slightly above minimum wage. Oh, how we dreaded that job, but it gave us a chance to save up for those concerts and other expenses that came with being young. Since that first job, though, the age of restaurant self-service bots has dawned, and it is the end of fast food as we know it. The generations that come after us will not have the likelihood of working at a fast food joint to make a couple extra bucks. Restaurants like McDonald's, Carl's Jr., Wendy's, Panera Bread, and others have seen their spending on automated kiosks increase. The rise of the automation will lead to the deterioration of low-skilled employment, and create a sense of either adapt or die for the 3,000,000 positions, many of which are tied to the fast-food sector.
As the movement pushing for $15 per hour minimum wage picks up steam in large cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Seattle, businesses will have a bigger incentive to replace human labor with automation as the price of labor increases. For example, in Phoenix, Arizona, a state of the art robot run McDonald's opened up after the company saw earnings fall for the first time in nine years. Store manager Peter Gibbons told CNN that the new restaurant is able to run 50 times faster while only employing a small team to upkeep, clean, and collect money at the end of each day. Others like Panera Bread have released Panera 2.0, which is in full swing at 50% of its stores. The Kiosks are able to take orders in a more timely manner and with greater accuracy than a human could. We could be seeing a movement in true capitalism as companies start buying back shares and cutting costs in order to increase profits. With the price of these computer systems decreasing, employees will no longer just compete with each other, but with machines as well.
What about the employees? Well as with any company, the fast food companies have shareholders to deal with and sadly the employees take the backseat in the program. With all the doom and gloom it is hard to see a positive. With efficiency expected to increase, the kitchen staffs will grow to accommodate the new normal speed. Kiosks repair will also see an increase in employment opportunities, and overall our time is better spent performing tasks other than flipping burgers. Is 2016 the end of the fast-food worker? While companies will eventually fully automate, it will take some time to completely roll out the systems; however, the way the industry utilizes human labor will forever be changed. So next time you go out to your neighborhood McDonald's, make sure and check because it may be a robot taking your order.
