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IPFS News Link • Business/ Commerce

Walmart Says Employees are "Happy" That Robots Are Taking Their Jobs

• https://www.theorganicprepper.com

Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving closer to making humans redundant.

Self-checkouts have been replacing human employees for quite some time, and now robots are taking other jobs.

Walmart is replacing some employees with robots.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart is deploying robots to carry out mundane tasks like mopping its floors and tracking inventory as it seeks to cut down on labor costs after raising wages last year.

Walmart, which is the largest employer in the US, said at least 300 stores will introduce machines that scan shelves for out-of-stock products. Meanwhile, so-called "autonomous floor scrubbers" will be deployed in 1,500 stores, and conveyor belts that automatically scan and sort products as they are loaded off of trucks will more than double to 1,200. Another 900 stores will install 16-foot-high towers that will allow customers to pick up their online grocery orders without interacting with humans. (source)

Naturally, the mega-retailer wants us to believe that robots taking over certain tasks in their stores is a good thing – a change that will allegedly benefit their human employees. "With automation, we are able to take away some of the tasks that associates don't enjoy doing," Mark Propes, senior director of central operations for Walmart US, told The Wall Street Journal. "At the same time, we continue to open up new jobs in other things in the store."

The company said the addition of a single machine can cut a few hours a day of work previously done by a human, or allow Walmart to allocate fewer people to complete a task, a large saving when spread around 4,600 U.S. stores. Executives said they are focused on giving workers more time to do other tasks, and on hiring in growing areas like e-commerce.

Instead, Walmart is spending to battle Amazon.com Inc. and serve more shoppers buying online. Walmart has hired around 40,000 store workers to pick groceries from shelves to fulfill online orders. The company is also raising wages, adding worker training, and buying e-commerce startups.

Store workers spend two to three hours a day driving a floor scrubber through a store using the manual machines, said a company spokesman last year. The automatic conveyor belts cut the number of workers needed to unload trucks by half, from around eight to four workers, said executives at a company presentation last June. (source)