Minimum Wage, Maximum Automation: Fast Food Robots at a Franchise Near You
9th March 2016
Hardee’s customers won’t have to deal with Hardee’s human employees much longer. The fast food franchise is experimenting with self-service kiosks at several of their restaurants, claiming, “The self-ordering kiosk gives the customer a fun, interactive and user-friendly way to control their order.”
This marketing blurb is obviously an exaggeration. There has never been a kiosk experience that was anything other than tolerable.
What these glorified iPads actually provide is a capital substitute for certain types of labor. Fast food restaurants are not exactly known for their sophistication in customer service and instead entice customers with speed, convenience, and consistency. Wages for fast food employees are in turn derived from the value workers add in these various capacities. The replacement of workers with kiosks signals that the value added by these services is most assuredly in decline.