JCPenney’s To Eliminate Check-Out Clerks

pittsburgh.cbslocal.com...

...The CEO of JCPenney is the former retail chief of Apple, and he wants to shake things up to restore the company to profitability.

But one of his ideas – replacing clerks with a self-check-out system – well, that doesn’t go over too well with some customers...
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...Penney’s CEO Ron Johnson says the store will switch the traditional bar codes on price tags to RFID’s – or radio frequency identification chips – and use self-service checkout machines found in many grocery stores.

“That’s taking away jobs from people,” notes Kuhn. “People need to work and make money. Plus, if I’m coming to the store, I want to have someone there to help me.”

Now, JCPenney will not be eliminating store clerks all together. Each of the proposed boutiques within the store will have its staff.

But beginning in 2014, at check-out you’ll be on your own.

In an email, a Penny’s spokesman would not say how many jobs would be lost, saying instead this new check-out would actually free employees to help customers in other ways.

Globalism and the resultant increase in service industry jobs was sold to us with the idea that there would, in fact, be an increased number of those jobs for people down-sized or out-sourced from other jobs.

Apparently that was all just a con job.

This is really only the start of it, as more things become automated, more jobs will be lost. When one corporation makes a huge change like this, the rest follow suit. Look at the auto industry. Look also at how retailers and most other service related companies gutted full time jobs in favor of part-time employees only in order to cut benefits.

This IS going to happen. Most sectors of the service industry will follow suit. There are already vending machines for just about anything you can imagine in Japan and other Asian countries.

Either we need a change in what it means to be an employed citizen or we need a paradigm shift for our social structure all together - because most jobs are moving to the service sector and those jobs will eventually be primarily automated.

Where will that leave us?

And, yeah, no wise cracks about how you think JC Penny sucks - this is bigger than that.

There is a simple solution to all of this.

People should not shop at these stores.

Is it really likely more checkouts would become automate, though? There are numerous ways of cheating self-service systems. It's one of those weaknesses that enable me to buy alcohol without being told to produce ID cards I don't possess.

This is the future, it really sucks that people are going to loose these jobs, its been coming for a long long time and accepted. Here is the problem as i see it, we ask for more and more conveniance in our lives and yet we will b*itch at something like this. What is it people really want, thats my question to everyone do you want the ease of machines handling everything in our lives or return to personal service by humans,more importantly, WILL YOU PAY EXTRA FOR IT.

Yeah well he is going to end up with no profits, because no one will be able to afford the items.

here in ny they ONLY have self check out in cvs. pathmark has a few but for a major store to do this is nuts. many jobs will definitely be lost as a result. i feel for the employees big time esp. the ones with 10+ years on.

After looking over the story? Well, I never have been a big JC Pennys fan and this sure won't change it.

I've used fully automated Self-Checkout systems at Lowes a couple times to see how it all worked. It's never gone 100% smooth and heck...at Lowes I'm dealing with hardware and tangible objects with known and measurable weights from a computer's perspective. I go human or I go to Home Depot. Now, lets switch to JC Pennys, which is basically clothing and other soft goods with NO known weights or anything else for a blind computer to feel it's not being ripped off. (which was where my Lowes problems always came in)

How does that work exactly, when the computer tells you to place the bag for verification...in case you got sticky fingers? How will it know if it's one scarf or two? One skirt or actually holding more? I know! RFID! ...with a whole new set of problems. Oh...this just doesn't strike me as having much for good points to it. Besides.....Clerk jobs are a student's best friend and we're a college/university town. Leave our clerk openings at Pennys alone.

add em up---Illinois is about to add 12000-20000 more unemployed and now it looks like maybe a few more. Our prisons down south are being shut down and many state employees are getting ready to be dropped..teachers and prek will be out too. Honeywell just announced major layoffs down here..and now JCP?

How can they say we are in recovery?

reply to post by 1947flxible


I agree. The question remains though - how will people remain employed? How will people afford these conveniences?

Society isn't exactly cranking out CERN scientists or other non-service professions. Hell, people can't even afford college anymore.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


LOL! Read the article carefully - here's the clincher - RFID chips.

But if they eliminate check out clerks who are people going to complain to about the price being five cents off? Or want to know what each individual thing rang up for even though its right in front of their face? Or ask to price check 17 items only to not take any of them? Who are they going to give a hard time to while 20 people are behind them waiting?

reply to post by RealSpoke


That is it exactly. It's cannibal capitalism. Or just straight up cannibalism because we will all be so poor, we'll end up eating each other.

At every single store I have seen a self checkout I have waited in line rather than use one. I have also made it a point to be vocal about why I am not using one. I try to make the people using them feel a bit guilty about it while telling others (in my loud voice) why I refuse to self check.

Oh and those that do self check the even get a discount for doing the work that just the previous week was done for them.

reply to post by KillerQueen


Dear KillerQueen,

I was surprised that nobody else picked up on that. Yes every item will have it's own RFID chip. This must mean that the cost of the chips is as low as the cost of a paper barcode. This is item level tracking which has serious privacy issues.

reply to post by AQuestion


Poor and tagged. A dangerous combination, IMHO.

Yea self checkouts are sure coming along ,


What do we all need to do ? I think we should play dumb , and pretend we don't know how to use it . They use numbers to see how many people go through smoothly and how many "problems" happen on a daily basis , if more people kept messing up , they would stay away from them . Because then they have to pay extra people to help people who can't help them selfs as self checkouts.


Go ahead mess up , play dumb , get those error numbers so high that its not a viable option :p Remember its for the cashiers of tmrw!

I love going to the self checkouts.. I like to select the foriegn languages it offers and then purposefully screw it up because no one can read how to fix it.

I agree though with the other post if I'm really there to buy something and not screw around I will refuse to use them 14 checkout lanes and only one has a person and 3 are self checkout. The machines are always messing up. "please remove item from bagging area" they suck are completely impersonal and can kiss my rear.

JC Penny is on the way out. They are closing them here in my area and I live in Northern Va. we are hit least in the recession because all the government jobs. I'm so sick of the gov. I think tho this is going to be the new trend

This is ridiculous did some googling on JCP cant post links off my phone, but from what I read the CEO isnt doing his job correctly. JCP turned a good profit for most of 2011 and it seems like they started restructuring and things headed down hill. Thats what I gather from what I read anyway. So basically the CEO wants to eliminate jobs to make a profit instead of finding a new business model that would attract more customers. These people are horrible at doing business.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

What I find perplexing, is that corporations are trying to cut expenses by cutting jobs, and that will only work for so long until no one has a job, so the low, low price no longer matters. They are killing the consumer dollars by killing the service sector jobs.
Oh yeah, and will the RFID tracking chips automatically be turned off as I leave the store, or will some all seeing eye track their socks where ever I wear them? Is that overly paranoid?

Originally posted by KillerQueen
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

LOL! Read the article carefully - here's the clincher - RFID chips.

Yeah... I mentioned that half in jest actually, because it's just a moment where I have to wonder....are they really serious?

Heck, I may just go shop there once, come to think of it. The more I consider it now...the more I'm dying to see how they have to design this with more than that. Lowes runs one way but with quite a bit more than one system built into the little auto-checkout from what I could see.

RFID worked in Walmart DC's and Produce Sheds I picked up/delivered in because everyone actually wanted it to and worked hard at it. It still wasn't golden. This will be entertaining if they truly do use only that to run their checkout and inventory control.