Photo above – Sigourney Weaver fights aliens wearing a forklift/exoskeleton suit. Automated forklifts are coming to Walmart warehouses, and we'll evidently never get this exoskeleton after all.
Geeze Louise . . . we don’t have to wait for AI. Robots are coming for everybody’s jobs. Case in point – Walmart has budgeted $200 million for self driving forklifts. Goodbye teamsters, strikes, and and giant contracts. See link below.
According to several links, the “average” forklift driver earns between $42,000 and $60,000 a year. Depending on location, unionization, and i suppose the number of accident-free days.
Driving a forklift is supposedly a job that “anyone” can do. Like flipping burgers and mopping floors. But those are being automated too. I’ve personally never piloted a forklift, but I saw a dozen zooming around a US Foods warehouse a few years ago when the food and beverage manager botched an order, and I volunteered to drive up and get 300 pounds of frozen scrambled egg slurry. The forklift's were all moving backwards, at high speed, and heir beepers were all jingling simultaneously. It’s deafening. Humans should stay the hell off the warehouse floor. Soon the forklifts will be able to dodge each other, backwards and forwards. They will work 24/7, and they will not need vacation time, health benefits, or a 401K match program.
Of course, Walmart's $200 million is just the start. The big enchilada will be Amazon. They’re already experimenting with robot “pickers” in the warehouses. Goodbye $23 an hour (plus benefits, including college tuition) warehouse employees.
The link doesn’t say where Walmart's forklifts are being made. The supplier is Fox Robotics, with headquarters in Austin Texas, so I’m hopeful these things won’t immediately arrive by the millions from China. But you can bet someone is building them over there, too.
This is a bit different than the future we were promised in films like “Aliens:. Where you could strap on a forklift exoskeleton, and either fetch pallets of Doritos, or shred aliens which look like giant insects, depending on your mood.
I'm just sayin' . . .
~Exclusive: Walmart looks to bet $200 million on autonomous forklifts | Reuters~
How much does a forklift driver earn? Walmart is spending $200 million for autonomous forklifts, to avoid the labor expense, whatever it is . . .
byu/baltimore-aureole ineconomy
by baltimore-aureole
6 comments
So average employee on the low end is $80,000 so $200M would eliminate 2,500 employees and I bet they have a sh!t ton more than that in forklift drivers..
does Wal-Mart have teamsters in their warehouses? serious question, i don’t know
“Driving a forklift is supposedly a job that “anyone” can do.”…… Lol, I wish that were true, but in my experience, it’s not. 
200 million is nothing if each automated warehouse is easily 50 million to build. Keep in mind that these distribution centers are just storage facilities for food that is non perishable, and that Walmart doesn’t actually produce the food. It hasn’t been proven that your $1.25 can of garbanzo beans is way more affordable/profitable when using automated warehouses compared to manual labor warehouses.
And the workarounds for this is basically shipper pallets like at Sams Club or Costco or just having it shipped by hand to your doorstep via USPS or UPS. No amount of fancy automated warehouses can rival Costco or the USPS/Amazon systems.
Lol forklift drivers are normal associates with more training and same pay.
Go ask home depot.
The forklift doesn’t come with human issues like needing time off for personal issues. It’s also likely to be less prone to accidents but it will probably take time to see the actual results on this.