Well here in germany theres this in between thing where you still have a cashier but they dont directly do the change, they just sit there. Pull the items over the band and you put the money in a coin sorter.

In many cases an employee is still present they just have an eye on the self checkout aisle so no one does anything stupid.. like the way ikea does it is smart...really only works in large af stores such as ikea though. They Have like 8 cashless registers for smaller purchase numbers.. and one or two sometimes 3 employees are around to guide people and manage, you have 8 cashless registers (sometimes 4) and still 2-3 employees.. because they handle furniture and such, having all these cash registers filled is almost too inefficient because you still get long lines... ikea just turned 2 cash registers into like...8 and still has employees staffing it all...heck they seem to have more people thanks to this. I usually see 3 people on the self checkout aisles, when the area that thing takes up is usually just one or two cash registers normally...but again this only works in huge Huge stores like ikea where it is also worth to Have a ton of employers just because they do pick up and delivery too. So even at calm hours no employee is useless there

Cashiers are sadly a dying job because it is quite stressful. Underpaid and all in all a job that requires quite a bunch of skill and resiliency....so you often times don't get many skilled enough cashiers that can handle the load.. which is why these coin machines exist... to mske cashier employment easier

Like with or without self checkout aisles, the whole retail sector is getting smaller and smaller and employees often times no longer need to be there for cashier roles but stocking shelves etc...this direction is happening anyway

Im your average aldi you have 4 or 5 cash registers usually just one or two are staffed... the store can be run by like 3 people...in most stores having a dedicated person for every cash register is not needed.. most grocery stores in their very design run with few people in the actual store.. self checkout aisle or not.

A self checkout aisle just makes the shop run more fluidly usually... it tends to be one of those things which is bad but it's more thr symphtom of a trend that has already been going on steadily, if anything it increases life quality for the handful employees still there.. as theres less workload.

It is sadly one of those many jobs which requires suprising amounts of skill. Is too underpaid to find plenty of employees.. and can be automated....also in a more and more cashless society you don't need as many cashiers that can handle coins really well...if anything the prevelancy of credit and debit cards is the thing killing the cashier job.

If it werent for the self checkout you just have 3 overworked cashiers at 7 cash registers...just because theres 7 cash registers doesnt mesn they hire 7 people.

Not really. As long as it made the same amount of money. People would have to refuse to use stores with self-checkout, and in large numbers, for it to make a difference.

By that logic, people can force almost anything out of a company by acting in collective, which is true, but the fact of the matter is that they basically never collectively act on the economy to their own immediate personal detriment. The only times things like that happen are when they are legislated, like New Jersey banning people from self-pumping their own gasoline.