The Daily Mail reports that Tesco has opened Britain's first store equipped solely with self-checkout units. The Tesco Express in King's Langley, Northampton, has a total of five self-checkout lanes overseen by a single member of staff and has no manned checkouts. Tesco is branding it as an "assisted service store."
Critics are warning that this is the beginning of the end for checkout workers. (Tesco has a workforce of about 221,000.) But Tesco says that the solution is working, and that lines are dwindling.
A spokesman for Tesco told the Daily Mail:
Customers like the fact (that) there are always five checkouts available. Before, you could have four manned checkouts but only one person working the till. It's a lot quicker, but some people have never used them before, so a member of staff is there to assist. If needs be, there can be five members of staff assisting customers. We have had no negative feedback so far.
