Short of Workers, Fast-Food Restaurants Turn to Robots
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Experts have warned for years that robots will replace humans in restaurants. Instead, a twist on that prediction is unfolding. Amid the lowest unemployment in years, fast-food restaurants are turning to machines—not to get rid of workers, but because they can’t find enough.
If businesses were just using machines to replace workers, you would see high unemployment in the industry, said Donald Grimes, a labor economist at the University of Michigan. “But you’re not seeing that at all.”
The 6% unemployment rate for restaurant workers is the lowest on record, according to the Labor Department. It tops the 3.8% overall unemployment rate, yet is extremely low for an industry with notoriously brisk turnover—a full percentage point below where it stood in 2000, the last time overall unemployment was as low as it is today.
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