When the robots came to online retailer Boxed, dread came too: The fear that the machines would take over, leaving a trail of unemployed humans. Yet this did not come to pass. When the new warehouse opened this spring, workers found that their jobs were less physically demanding than at the previous, manual warehouse in Edison, NJ. And rather than cutting jobs, the company added a 3rd shift to keep up with rapidly growing demand.
“What happened at Boxed – and elsewhere – suggests that widespread fears about automation and job loss are often misplaced,” reports The Orlando Sentinel (Oct. 31, 2017, page A9). Automation has actually helped create jobs in e-commerce, rather than eliminate them. By accelerating delivery times, robotics and software have made online shopping an increasingly viable alternative to bricks-and-mortar stores, and sales have ballooned at online retailers.
The surge in e-commerce has required the rapid build-out of a vast network of warehouses and delivery systems that include both robots and human workers. Even if the robots replace some people in each warehouse, the proliferation of new warehouses should still generate hiring for years to come. Jobs have been lost at storefront retailers, which have suffered under the e-commerce onslaught.
But worries about a “retail apocalypse” wiping out many of the nation’s 16 million retail jobs have missed a more important trend: E-commerce leads to more jobs, by paying people to do things we used to do ourselves. Amazon accounts for much of the additional employment. Yet it’s also at the vanguard of automation. Since 2014, Amazon has deployed 100,000 robots in 25 warehouses worldwide. It’s tripled its hourly workforce, from 45,000 to 125,000. At Amazon’s Baltimore warehouse, employees called “stowers” are needed to stock the shelves that are carried by robots. And that requires human judgment: Software suggests to workers where each item should be placed. But it’s an employee’s responsibility to make sure the shelves, which are tall and narrow, remain balanced.
The explosion of online commerce is also building demand for higher-paying jobs in software and robotics, with 14% of software job listings are now posted by retailers.
Classroom discussion questions:
1. Why can’t warehouse such as these be totally automated?
2. What is the future of storefront retailers?