I thought self-checkout was killing cashier jobs until I watched one store in Boise for a month

Wendy Scott · 2026-10-05T13:15:03.716505+00:00

I was sure the machines at the Boise Fred Meyer on Federal Way would wipe out half the front end crew, so I sat in the parking lot and counted people going in and out for 4 weeks. Turned out the store hired 6 more workers, but they all got moved to picking online orders in the back. The cashiers didn't lose jobs, the job just changed into something you do with a scanner and a cart instead of a register. Has anyone else watched a store do this, or is Boise just weird?

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I thought self-checkout was killing cashier jobs until I watched one store in Boise for a month | Automation Anxiety - Free To Speak