[collinf]

Why? I think that they move on to another service industry job such as customer service or something. I don't think working in a fast food restaurant is building the sort of skills that making a horizontal jump to another industry is outlandish.

[reaperducer]

I think that they move on to another service industry job such as customer service or something.

That's just something people think so that they don't have to feel empathy for people who lose their jobs to automation. It's kind of an internal excuse.

The reality is that not everyone is re-trainable. And if someone could easily get a job in customer service, or some other marginally better situation, they already wouldn't be working at a fast food joint.

In addition, many fast-food jobs are temporary/seasonal. A high school kid can get a six-month stint at MacDowell's to pay for car insurance over the summer. A call center isn't going to take him in and train him knowing that he's going to bolt come September.

[pmart123]

Recently, I was contemplating something regarding customer service jobs and automation. I was at a fintech data conference listening to the work being put in to analyze customer support call log history to understand where prospects are in a pipeline or improve retention.

If a system can pinpoint a prospect is close to onboarding, and customer service rep is a great closer, the software could pass the prospect off to the "closer". The same could be said for keeping a customer who is on the fence from leaving. All of the sudden, a highly skilled closer has data and metrics attributable to the company's bottom line, and in theory, someone like this should become a high priced asset.

In some instances, could automation actually greatly increase the salary dispersion in certain low wage fields?

[jstarfish]

> I think that they move on to another service industry job such as customer service or something

Right, they can compete with all the other displaced workers for the #1 position most likely to be outsourced.

Hell, many Targets don't even have a customer service desk anymore. They demolish them and assign the workload of both sales and returns to a random cashier.

A lot of people are not qualified for skilled work and will never transcend entry-level fast-food jobs. If you take away those tasks that keep them productively occupied, it might be a good time to start buying stock in industries related to prison management.