Tech left teens fighting for scraps and now wants them too

At the moment, there are

Robots stocking convenience stores shelves is Japan. It’s hard to believe that 7-11 or Walmart will not at least experiment with this tech soon. Walmart abandoned its shelf-scanning robotics in 2020. However, machine vision and artificial intelligence have improved significantly in the last five year. It’s only a question of time before a machine is refilling that row with family-sized Fruity Pebbles, and not a high school student earning some extra money.

The truth is that there are not many jobs available for teens anymore. Most of them have decided to remove themselves from the labor market. In August 2000, 52.3% of Americans aged 16-19 were in the workforce. In August 2025, this number will be just 34.8%.

The reasons for this are many (mostly “technology”) but it is bad for everyone.

Firstly, having a robot flip burgers instead of a person is not beneficial to anyone. Well, except for the investors in RoboBurgers.AI. Harry J. Holzer is a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution.
points out that automation “shifts compensation away from workers and towards business owners who enjoy higher profits while needing less labor.” As a consumer, you get a service or product that’s not demonstrably better than what a 17 year old goth kid can whip up. You won’t be able to get it cheaper and, if another AWS outage occurs, you may not receive anything at all.

Teenagers are also missing out on an important experience during the formative years of their life. As you age, it becomes more difficult to learn how to balance the responsibilities of work, navigate a workplace and develop basic financial literacy. They will arrive in the workplace with less experience, and without having had a chance to practice dealing with a difficult manager in a low-stakes position at a Dairy Queen.

MIT’s Daron Acemoglu argues automation

It doesn’t improve productivity all that much. It mainly just drives income inequality through the displacement of lower-skilled workers. Automation has displaced workers in warehouses and manufacturing, forcing adults to work in areas that were traditionally reserved for younger workers.

paper routes. The

In 2024, the average age for a retail worker in the US was 38.7. Clothing retail, which is much younger than the retail industry as a whole was 33 in 2024, up dramatically since

29.3 in 2015.

Now that adults are delivering their own pizza to supplement their income, they have become a lucrative business.

To try and keep up with stagnant wages
Robots will also take over these jobs due to soaring prices. Uber Eats and DoorDash have pushed out 17-year olds with driver’s licences from the delivery market. Depending on where you live, you may need to be at least 21 years old to deliver Chinese takeout to families in need. Both companies are now experimenting with autonomous food delivery robots.

I don’t want a self-driving refrigerator to deliver sushi to my door. I don’t see any benefit for me as a customer. Robots won’t fix anything wrong with the current system. Plus, I won’t have to worry that my salmon avocado rolls will spoil inside a 2012 Prius delivery driver’s vehicle because of a software update and spotty mobile reception.

Stocking the shelves, scooping up ice cream, flipping hamburgers, and delivering food are not glamorous jobs. They used to be jobs that gave teenagers and young adults their first taste of independence. They taught them valuable lessons about budgeting and interpersonal skills. The knock-on effect of online shopping, digital media, and automation has largely driven them from the workforce.

Teens are voluntarily leaving the workforce because they have to compete for a shrinking pool of jobs against an expanding pool of workers. And now, we are

Training robots will take the last scraps. Even bagging groceries isn’t safe.