Proper now, there are robots stocking comfort retailer cabinets in Japan. We haven’t embraced that tech right here in America but, but it surely’s exhausting to think about 7-11 or Walmart gained’t at the least experiment with it quickly. Walmart gave up on its shelf-scanning robots in 2020, however machine imaginative and prescient and AI have improved loads within the final 5 years, and it’s solely a matter of time earlier than it’s a machine refilling that row of family-sized Fruity Pebbles and never a child incomes some further money throughout senior 12 months of highschool.
Fact is, there simply aren’t many roles for teenagers on the market anymore, and most of them have chosen to easily take away themselves from the job market. In August of 2000, 52.3 p.c of People between the ages of 16 and 19 have been lively within the labor pressure. In August of 2025, that quantity is simply 34.8 p.c.
There are a ton of explanation why (which principally boil right down to “know-how”), however whatever the why, it’s unhealthy for everybody.
Firstly, no person advantages from having a robotic flip your burger as an alternative of a human. Effectively, no person besides whoever invested in RoboBurgers.AI, that’s. As Harry J. Holzer, a senior fellow on the Brookings Establishment, factors out, automation “shifts compensation from employees to enterprise house owners, who take pleasure in greater earnings with much less want for labor.” As a buyer, you get a product that isn’t demonstrably higher or extra dependable than what a 17-year-old goth child might whip up. You don’t get it any cheaper, both, and if there’s one other AWS outage, you won’t get something in any respect.
I’ll by no means have to fret about my salmon avocado rolls spoiling inside a supply driver’s 2012 Prius due to a firmware replace and spotty cell reception.
Simply as importantly, teenagers are lacking out on a worthwhile expertise throughout a number of the most youth of their lives. Studying to juggle the duties of a job, navigate a office, and develop fundamental monetary literacy expertise solely will get tougher as you grow old. They’ll arrive within the workforce with much less expertise beneath their belt, with out having been capable of take a look at run coping with a troublesome boss in a low-stakes job at a Dairy Queen.
MIT economist Daron Acemoglu argues that automation doesn’t really enhance productiveness that a lot, is usually simply drives revenue inequality by displacing lower-skill employees. Automation has eaten into jobs in manufacturing and warehouses, pushing adults who would usually work these positions into areas historically reserved for youthful employees, like retail, meals supply, and even paper routes. The common age of a retail employee within the US in 2024 was 38.7. In clothes retail particularly, which skews a lot youthful than retail as an entire, it was 33, up dramatically from 29.3 in 2015.
And now that adults are delivering pizza on the facet to complement their stagnant wages and to attempt to sustain with hovering costs, the robots are coming for these jobs, too. It wasn’t sufficient that 17-year-olds with driver’s licenses bought pushed out of the supply market by Uber Eats and DoorDash the place, relying on what state you reside in, you would possibly must be 21 to drop off Chinese language takeout to hungry households. Now, each these firms are dabbling with autonomous meals supply robots within the US.
On the danger of sounding like a Luddite, I’m not enthusiastic about having a self-driving cooler roll as much as my gate to carry me sushi — I see no profit to me as a client. There’s nothing damaged with the present system {that a} robotic goes to repair. Plus, I’ll by no means have to fret about my salmon avocado rolls spoiling inside a supply driver’s 2012 Prius due to a firmware replace and spotty cell reception.
Stocking cabinets, scooping ice cream, flipping burgers, and delivering takeout aren’t wonderful jobs. However they was once the kind of factor that gave younger adults and youngsters a primary style of independence. They provided worthwhile classes in managing a price range and taught them essential interpersonal expertise. However the knock-on results of on-line buying, automation, and digital media have largely pushed them out of the workforce.
Teenagers have voluntarily eliminated themselves from the labor market as a result of they’re compelled to combat over an ever-shrinking pool of jobs with an ever-expanding pool of employees. And now, we’re coaching robots to take what few scraps are left. Even bagging groceries isn’t protected.