Well, these store have to stay open, no matter what. So I guess there's nothing to be done, other than have low-risk populations ready to fill these roles.
Seems a little bit scare-mongery to me.
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> there's nothing to be done, other than have low-risk populations ready to fill these roles.
Or increase wages. Quantity demanded of labor is greater than supply. It's relatively-unskilled work, so drawing new entrants to the labor pool isn't prohibitive. But it isn't happening at prevailing wages.
That wage increase, in turn, might merit price increases for customers. If politicians find that untenable, they may spread the cost to taxpayers instead through public programs.
If you're involved at any of these levels, reading the writing on the wall would be useful.
Why would a corporation do that? These jobs are "essential" and are also extremely easy to replace. That's why we don't see wages going up and likely will see the opposite in the coming few months.
Supply is FAR larger than demand right now. Have you seen the unemployment rate right now?
Probably true, but better to push hard first on ways to lower the risk to workers.
> Well, these store have to stay open, no matter what.
No, they certainly don't. What's necessary is that people get food. How they get it is open to discussion.
Food-delivery services in many countries are overburdened even with the local supermarkets remaining open. There may be room for discussion about a universal food-delivery system for future lockdowns, but right now supermarkets are the only realistic way for the population to get their sustenance.
These supply chains are well oiled machines compared to new and untested emergency methods of procuring and delivering food to an entire nation, but I'm willing to hear other suggestions out of interest
Most stores in my area are offering free curbside pickup now. Moving to pickup-only would significantly lower the human contact, both employee/customer and customer/customer. Nobody is talking about giving up on existing supply chains. Just the employee/product/customer mosh pit at the end.
That final part where customers perform a random walk around a warehouse until they've found everything is not a "well oiled machine". Better to hire some professional shoppers who know where everything is. It'll be faster and safer.
Even if you insist on remaining open to the general public walking around your store, there's a million things you can do. Some stores are limiting the number of customers in the store at one time. Some stores are requiring face masks. Some stores are marking aisles as "one-way" to make it easier to maintain distance. The last store I was in had plastic film over the payment keypads, and sanitized it between customers. We know how to improve things. There's just not a ton of consistency yet.
Agree with you about the pickup part, I think that's a reasonable pivot. I was only referencing the supply chain portion with the "well oiled machine" bit and was just worried about drastic changes that would significantly alter the functioning of the existing distribution of goods. I'm totally on board with all the the smaller optimizations you mention