These days, I often hear people say that 'saving people' is too difficult.
It is said that no one works even if you pay a lot of money.
It means that the work is hard and arduous, but the atmosphere is not unusual.
Recently, a kalguksu restaurant in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul has been making pickled vegetables with domestic ingredients for 22 years, but even that has been abandoned.
There is no top pickle in the kalguksu.
You can see that the customers have hardly touched the factory kimchi, which has been changed, but the popular menu of this house, hand-made dumplings, is also not being sold for the time being.
The boss didn't give up because he wanted to give up joljeoljji and dumplings.
The price of various food materials, such as cabbage and seasoning, also jumped a lot, but more than that, it was because it was difficult to find people to work in the restaurant.
According to the owner's expression, "Even when they came to work, the workers ran away when they saw the cabbage piled up in front of the store."
He gave up making side dishes countless times, but he said it was difficult to raise his head because he felt sorry for the regular customers.
Food service industry, saving people is 'a star in the sky'
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The deepening manpower shortage is not just the case with this kalguksu restaurant.
Even a lamb skewer restaurant in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul couldn't save anyone, so the two of us are doing all the kitchen work and serving customers.
Two people are doing what the four of us usually did.
Even a foreign (Chinese compatriot) chef, who had relatively cheaper labor costs than Koreans, had to pay 3.8 million won a month to get it.
There are many self-employed people who want to hire an employee but cannot because the labor cost is too high.
Is that so?
These days, restaurants, cafes, and convenience stores are increasingly becoming unmanned and automated.
The robot that serves and takes orders in restaurants must have been familiar by now.
The introduction of 'robot chefs
', in which robots cook for humans, is also increasing.
A startup's 'robot chicken' can fry up to 50 chickens an hour.
Another advantage is that people don't have to stand in front of the hot fryer all the time and can do other things.
Another startup has developed a stir-fry robot that makes 5 servings of tteokbokki in 10 minutes.
Tteokbokki is completed by simply putting the ingredients measured as written in the manual into the pot.
Usually, it takes two or three employees to run a 100㎡ store, but with just one person, it was possible to cook, order for delivery, and even serve customers.
A strong wind of automation... "Invest in materials by saving labor costs"
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The cooking robot, which I saw in person, seemed simple and convenient.
Even the kitchen with robots and humans was not awkward at all.
I also thought that in a few years I would get used to it like a kiosk.
The monthly rent for a chicken robot is 1.1 million won, which is not a small burden, but it is relatively cheap compared to the labor cost per person.
A boss who uses a cooking robot said that the labor cost saved in this way can be invested in buying better ingredients.
So, can robots really solve the current job shortage?
Could it be that if the number of robots increases, jobs themselves will decrease in the long run?
First of all, the conventional wisdom that 'robots take people's jobs' is being shaken.
In the early days of robot adoption, there were many predictions that “automation could reduce wages and increase unemployment”, but there is still no evidence that the number of repetitive jobs replaced by robots is decreasing more than other jobs.
It would be correct to interpret that the shortage of manpower is worsening not because the number of robots is increasing, but because more and more people are not willing to do intensive work.
The popularization of automated robots may be another breakthrough for the self-employed who are experiencing the triple burden of rising labor costs, labor shortages, and rising material costs.
Automation is trending... Need to prepare for the changing job landscape
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Automation in the culinary sector is also an irresistible global trend.
There were a lot of part-time students at the ticket office just 5 or 6 years ago, but with the introduction of automatic ticket machines,
the map of jobs is being used anew as if there are only one or two people now.
Kim Jong-jin, a senior research fellow at the Korea Labor and Social Research Institute, analyzes this.
“It is true that digitalization and automation are replacing human jobs, but they are also increasing. When robots are introduced, there are also jobs that install and repair them. More importantly, robots are still unable to replace jobs. "It is not easy to introduce robots right away, for example, in a white house in front of an office. Machines will not be able to replace platform jobs or face-to-face jobs that require human services, such as childcare."
Unable to solve the job problem with wage increase... The era of coexistence with robots
Of course, a solution such as "Robots take away jobs, individuals should find another job on their own" cannot be a solution.
Researcher Kim pointed out that it is necessary to come up with a national countermeasure against the displaced manpower.
The government
needs to strengthen vocational education and training to fill middle-level jobs in line with the changing job landscape.
It is an experience already learned in developed countries that it is difficult to solve the mismatch between job demand and supply with a simple wage increase in a world of low growth.
The era in which the definition of work is changing from 'to earn money' to 'the right to get a job'.
Coexistence with robots that have entered our daily lives is a new task in front of us.
(Photo = Pixar Bay)