Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots • Hacker News Board

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#111

Post by stale2002 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #56

liquidise wrote: post #3

Modern societies are going to have a very real problem to grapple with as this replacement goes from newsworthy to the norm. This could result in significant worker displacement with massive bottom-line ROI for companies in the next decade or two, particularly as minimum wages rise. I'm not of the opinion that this automation will create an equal number of jobs for the ones they replace. Even if they do, it is unlike…

high skill jobs are at risk too. It's reasonable to assume, given recent tech developments(AI, low code for software, generative design for graphic design/engineering and architecture, blockchain for professions working on trust in transaction like accounting, some automation in the legal field, automation in insurance) that many high-skill professions will suffer unemployment too. And can someone with high-skill job…

People are under the assumption that high skilled jobs are safe, because that's what the actual facts on the ground show.

Engineering salaries and jobs have skyrocketed in the past decade, and they only show signs of continuing to increase.

I have heard people yell about how we are all going to be replaced, every year, for the last 10 years, and yet here we are, with that future not coming true.

Eventually, after making so many predictions, and getting it wrong so many times, people need to reevaluate their guesses, and instead use a fact based analysis of what the market looks like.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#112

Post by imagiko » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

I have wondered at what point will job cuts start affecting the overall supply demand equation as more and more people get out of work and will have less spending capacity. Who will buy more 'stuff' and how? We don't know at what rate the jobs will be replaced, if at all. What will be the equilibrium point then?

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#113

Post by cloudbubble » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

kmlx wrote: post #80

Japan has always embraced automation, is a staple in robotics and overall could prove to be a good model to have instead of the constant fear mongering about automation in the west. It’s not like this sort of change hasn’t happend before; it’s just that now we have the internet which amplifies our fears (and there’s also lots more of us on the planet).

I remember I read an article about how in Japan, they see robots as their friend, as something innate with spirit because in Shinto everything has a spirit, so they embrace them much more easily. Whereas we in the west see robots as our enemy, something to compete against.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#114

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

endtime wrote: post #95

DrNuke wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The masses still need to eat or are we just letting them starve?

[flagged]

I'm a socialist and yet I believe that neither Stalin's Gulags nor Mao's mass hunger deaths are something that should be repeated. Authoritarian socialism has been proven to not work, what the world desperately needs is liberal/libertarian socialism.

We can learn from history - ok, those who openly fly the Nazi flag not, but majority of society can see the problems like homelessness, drug epidemics and exploding rents.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#115

Post by chimeracoder » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

ry_ry wrote: post #89

taneq wrote: post #4

It's OK, the staff will just find new jobs as electronics engineers and machine learning researchers. /s

Strictly playing devil's advocate, but is the lifelong employment of their staff uniqlo's problem? If you found a cheaper supplier of milk, would you feel obligated to reimburse your milk man? (may be a misplaced cultural reference, but in the UK 20+ years ago a chap delivering you milk to your door every morning on a rolling contract basis was the norm - generally they do other stuff now)

> If you found a cheaper supplier of milk, would you feel obligated to reimburse your milk man?

According to the TWU, yes - the MTA is required to pay the TWU $450,000 whenever it uses a machine to bore tunnels, because forty years ago, that job would have been performed by a human instead.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#116

Post by mooneater » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

SequoiaHope wrote: post #45

sharkweek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower class gets bigger and bigger, and is either kept just happy enough to not revolt or... At some point this boils over and the ultra wealthy are forced to redistribute wealth either through new political policy or by violent force.

An alternative, which I advocate for, is that the lower class form productive collectives, stop contributing to the ultra wealthy, and generate their own real wealth. Much of the worlds wealth exists in wealth-generating infrastructure and information that is accessible to all of us. If we simply divest from the ultra wealthy and build a new economy based on cooperation, we can construct a system that inherently lift…

downvoters please share your reasons with us

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#117

Post by mjevans » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

apercu wrote: post #17

I worked in a warehouse for a summer in school because the hours fit around my other job and the pay was little higher than some other options (retail). But the Teamsters union ran the show and it was so political that I went back to the food/beverage service business. All that said, it's too bad that warehouse work isn't going to be an option for many people. There are fewer and fewer jobs for a lot of people. Note:…

It would be better for all if there were enough unions for a choice to be had there, and if negotiations were across all unions and businesses 'in a sector' at a time.

This way there isn't a dramatic power imbalance...

    * Big corp VS single worker
    * Monopoly on labor (Union required) VS single corp
    * Monopoly on type of job (Union required) VS single worker

That gives a choice at every possible side, and also gives the worker the option of switching unions if the political leadership of one is poor or they have bad support/promotion.

It also gives sets of businesses and sets of worker pools the opportunity to reach the most amicable agreement for the compensation and treatment of works as possible.

This does nothing to reflect larger economic imbalances caused by things like minimum wage, but it could slow or reverse the deterioration of the middle class and increase stability of workers within an area which would promote more investment in having a community there and fixing things like insane housing costs.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#118

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

cloudbubble wrote: post #113

kmlx wrote: post #80

Japan has always embraced automation, is a staple in robotics and overall could prove to be a good model to have instead of the constant fear mongering about automation in the west. It’s not like this sort of change hasn’t happend before; it’s just that now we have the internet which amplifies our fears (and there’s also lots more of us on the planet).

I remember I read an article about how in Japan, they see robots as their friend, as something innate with spirit because in Shinto everything has a spirit, so they embrace them much more easily. Whereas we in the west see robots as our enemy, something to compete against.

Japanese companies generally have a better employee relationship. Granted, some parts of it are exploitative, but at least workers are treated like family and not like exchangeable cogs like in Western cutthroat capitalism. There's respect and decency shown, whereas in the US it is common and legal to be fired on the spot, in some states even for no reason.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#119

Post by knieveltech » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #104

knieveltech wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is Econ 201's solution to pervasive unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? Is that also classified as "societal value"?

I'm not sure if you have noticed, but unemployment is at a multi decade low. We are not seeing pervasive unemployment, we are seeing the opposite. A situation where there are too many jobs, and not enough workers to fill them So econ 201 would say that there isn't any societial problem right now.

Then econ 201 clearly hasn't studied a graph of income inequality over time, and appears ready to ignore that the bulk of economic activity has shifted from manufacturing and other labor-intensive activities to the financial industry. But by all means, tell us more about how folks working "gigs", the pervasiveness of underemployment, and the frequency with which individuals have to work 3 or more jobs to survive isn't a societal problem.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#120

Post by cloudbubble » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

It's not just cutting out jobs that it is a problem, it's also the over-supply of clothing and 'fast-fashion' which is creating extra garbage. Auto-mating these things and making it cheaper and easier to move clothes around is only beneficial to those at the top of the capitalism chain - it's not particularly great for the planet.