'Tis the Season for Robots to Take Holiday Seasonal Jobs
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's your Money Briefing. I'm J.R. Whelan at The Wall Street Journal in New York. If you're applying for holiday seasonal jobs, you've got competition. And the competition gets around in a set of wheels. We'll check in with a Wall Street Journal reporter for details. First, some money and market stories you should know. Walgreens is closing walk-in clinics in about half of its stores to cut costs.
What holiday hiring trends should seasonal job seekers know about in 2021?
Walgreens says it'll close all of the roughly 160 clinics it runs itself, but keep about 220 clinics that are run by local health systems. On Monday, Walgreens posted a 55% drop in quarterly profits. For both Walgreens and rival CVS, clinics have barely broken even. Both are shifting away from treating minor health issues and focusing instead on people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. Bitcoin's value spiked 25% from last Friday to Monday, thanks to China. President Xi Jinping said late last week the country should seize the opportunity to adopt digital currencies.
Which warehouse tasks are robots performing instead of people?
Those comments came one day after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned Congress that if the U.S. did not take a lead in digital currencies like Bitcoin, China would. But China still has some reservations about the cryptocurrency. The government says it wants to crack down on Bitcoin mining because of the excessive electricity used in the process.
How are robots being used to move materials and guide warehouse associates?
You'd think that the unemployment rate at a 50-year low would mean an easier time for job seekers to find work during the upcoming holidays. But companies are ramping up automation at warehouses with robots doing tasks like filling orders normally performed by people. And Wall Street Journal reporter Jennifer Smith is here with details. So Jennifer, what sorts of jobs are robots doing that have traditionally been done by people besides just simply filling orders?
What they're actually doing is parts of jobs, primarily walking. So they're moving materials from one place to another.
Why are companies choosing a mix of humans and robots for peak holiday seasons?
Robotics, still pretty tough to actually replicate a human hand picking an item out of a bin, which is what happens with most of your holiday e-commerce picking. But what they can really do is help shuttle products in between different places where they're getting packed out. And sometimes they're even guiding associates to store it to the shelves in a warehouse.
Actually, many companies are planning to use a mix of people and robots.
The reason for that kind of uptick, and it is small in terms of overall hiring, the reason for that uptick is because people are having such a hard time finding staff. The warehouse industry has really kind of exploded with the growth of e-commerce, and there's a lot of competition for workers, and a lot of folks are finding that they're having trouble finding handling the volumes that they get as more Americans shop online, they're having trouble handling the seasonal surges. So they're looking for other ways to get help besides just adding bodies.
I guess all the cardboard boxes we see at mailboxes and lobbies of apartment buildings, we can see the ramp up in online shopping going on. You know, we're not just talking about unemployed people who'll be looking for holiday seasonal work. There are people with jobs looking for an additional source of income.
So there is still plenty of demand for seasonal labor. That's for sure. Again, the growth in the use of automation is more because people can't get enough workers, less that they're looking to replace workers. Although in the long term, you may see some of the more repetitive tasks that humans do being replaced by robots. What the employers say, or they're careful to say, is that the growth of online volumes means that they will always need to hire more workers to help.
Do employers see automation as replacing seasonal workers or supplementing them?
And consumers want fast delivery. They want it faster. They want more products. And for companies managing warehouses, it's like being chased by a locomotive.
The surges are very challenging and they sort of swing. It's a different world than when you would plan for the holiday by putting in orders that come through the ports in the fall and then they're in your warehouse and they go to your store.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:05–0:26
2
What holiday hiring trends should seasonal job seekers know about in 2021?
0:26–1:04
3
Which warehouse tasks are robots performing instead of people?
1:04–1:30
4
How are robots being used to move materials and guide warehouse associates?
1:30–2:01
5
Why are companies choosing a mix of humans and robots for peak holiday seasons?
2:01–3:36
6
Do employers see automation as replacing seasonal workers or supplementing them?
3:36–4:19
7
What should job seekers expect for seasonal demand and hiring this peak year?
4:19–5:27
Speakers
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