Amazon opens a revolutionary Whole Foods with technology that could render more than 3 million jobs in the United States obsolete

The new store employs technologies similar to self-driving cars.

According to Axios, the first Whole Foods to use cashierless technology opened its doors earlier this week, making register-free shopping a reality for customers at the 21,500-square-foot store in Washington, D.C.

Since at least 2016, Amazon, the grocery chain's parent company, has been working on its "Just Walk Out" system, which allows customers to load their carts and leave without interacting with a cashier at a traditional checkout stand. Its Amazon Go stores, which are approximately 1,200 and 2,300 square feet in size, use the same cashierless technology as the tech giant's 25,000-square-foot Amazon Fresh location in Bellevue, Washington, which opened last year.

The cashierless experience is enabled by cameras, sensors, and software that track people and products in the store — technology similar to that used in self-driving cars. Customers can avoid checkout entirely by scanning a QR code from their Amazon or Whole Foods app, their palm, or an Amazon-linked debit or credit card when they enter the store. After that, they can fill their baskets and walk out the door. Customers can still use self-checkout lanes at this time, where cash, gift cards, and supplemental nutrition program benefits are accepted.

In the long run, grocery stores around the world will most likely adopt Amazon's cashierless shopping experience. Although the pandemic's mandated social-distancing measures undoubtedly accelerated interest in cashierless models, Stephane Wyper, Mastercard's senior vice president of retail innovation, told TechHQ, "Even before COVID, retailers were investing in and testing the evolution of frictionless experiences. We expect this to grow and expand based on the demand we're seeing. It isn't just about the United States; we see it as a global trend."

Finally, the rise of cashierless models will affect a large portion of the US workforce. Though Amazon and Whole Foods announced in September that their cashierless stores will employ the same number of team members as comparable-sized stores, other grocery stores may be drawn to this technology because of its ability to reduce labor costs. The job outlook for cashiers is expected to decline by 10% between 2020 and 2030, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average growth rate across all occupations is 8%.

Marc Perrone, President of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, warned about the technology's potential consequences, saying, "Amazon Go is... displacing more than 3 million Americans from their jobs. Corporations must understand that a functioning society does not exist unless hardworking people can earn a living, support their families, and build a better life."

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