Robot packers and AI cameras: UK retail embraces automation to cut staff costs
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From electronic shelf labels to more self-service checkouts, automation is coming to your local supermarket. Electronic shelf labels, returns machines, robot bag packers and yet more self-service tills – just some of the many technologies that UK retailers are embracing as they try to solve the problem of rising labour costs.
![[Sarah Butler]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2022/11/09/Sarah_Butler_Next_Gen.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Investment in automation was a constant drumbeat amid the flurry of festive trading updates from big retailers in the past few weeks, as they face higher staffing bills from April after the rise in the national minimum wage and employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs).
The investments could improve productivity – a key government aim – in an industry long reliant on cheap labour. However, they will also replace entry-level jobs and reduce the number of roles in a sector that is the UK’s biggest employer. When the British Retail Consortium asked leading retailers’ finance directors how they would be responding to the impending increase in employers’ NICs, almost a third said they would be using more automation, although this sat behind raising prices, cutting head office jobs and reducing working hours.
So what innovations are they considering and whose jobs could be affected?. Already prevalent in some other countries, electronic shelf labels could blink into action across UK high streets in 2025. One retail boss told the Guardian the NICs surge in labour costs had suddenly made the switch economically viable.
Prices can be changed at the press of a button, slashing staff hours spent removing and replacing hundreds of small paper labels. The electricals chain Currys plans to put electronic pricing into 100 of its 300 UK stores by the end of this year, after trials in its Nordic outlets, while supermarket groups Sainsbury’s and the Co-op are also testing it out.
