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12 Apr 18
09:49
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Date Joined:
03 Dec 15
Up to 2,000 jobs could be lost at online retail company Shop Direct as it announced it would shift its distribution operations to a new, more automated centre in the East Midlands.
The retailer, which owns the Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com brands, will start building a new hub near East Midlands Airport in May, which will replace three warehouses in Greater Manchester from 2020.
The company warned that 1,177 permanent roles and 815 agency jobs could be lost as a result of the move.
Shop Direct, which is owned by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, the owners of Telegraph Media Group, has begun consultations with the Usdaw trade union to provide support to affected employees over the next two years, including offering advice and re-training.
Derek Harding, interim group chief executive of Shop Direct, acknowledged it was a “tough day” for the company but said the proposed move was “necessary for our future and to enable us to continue to grow and meet rising customer expectations”.
“We take very seriously our responsibilities to our colleagues, many of whom have been with us for along time and who work tirelessly to deliver for our customers,” he said.
“We are working alongside Usdaw, our recognised trade union, and will listen carefully to what they have to say. We’ll also work closely with local authorities and community leaders to make sure this process is carried out as fairly and sensitively as possible for our colleagues.”
Under the plans Shop Direct will wind down its fulfilment centres at Shaw and Little Hulton as well as its returns centre at Raven.
The new site, adjacent to the M1, will put the company’s logistics in one place with space to grow, the company said. Shop Direct will invest around £500m into the site, which will create 500 permanent roles and around 200 to 300 agency jobs.
The improved transport links at the new hub mean the company will be able to move the cut-off point for next-day delivery from the current deadline of 7pm to midnight.
In its last financial report, Shop Direct reported record sales of £1.93bn as its shift away from catalogue retailing to online continued to pay off.
Last month it announced the appointment of Henry Birch, currently boss of casinos operator Rank Group, as its new chief executive. He will join later this year.
The retailer, which owns the Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com brands, will start building a new hub near East Midlands Airport in May, which will replace three warehouses in Greater Manchester from 2020.
The company warned that 1,177 permanent roles and 815 agency jobs could be lost as a result of the move.
Shop Direct, which is owned by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, the owners of Telegraph Media Group, has begun consultations with the Usdaw trade union to provide support to affected employees over the next two years, including offering advice and re-training.
Derek Harding, interim group chief executive of Shop Direct, acknowledged it was a “tough day” for the company but said the proposed move was “necessary for our future and to enable us to continue to grow and meet rising customer expectations”.
“We take very seriously our responsibilities to our colleagues, many of whom have been with us for along time and who work tirelessly to deliver for our customers,” he said.
“We are working alongside Usdaw, our recognised trade union, and will listen carefully to what they have to say. We’ll also work closely with local authorities and community leaders to make sure this process is carried out as fairly and sensitively as possible for our colleagues.”
Under the plans Shop Direct will wind down its fulfilment centres at Shaw and Little Hulton as well as its returns centre at Raven.
The new site, adjacent to the M1, will put the company’s logistics in one place with space to grow, the company said. Shop Direct will invest around £500m into the site, which will create 500 permanent roles and around 200 to 300 agency jobs.
The improved transport links at the new hub mean the company will be able to move the cut-off point for next-day delivery from the current deadline of 7pm to midnight.
In its last financial report, Shop Direct reported record sales of £1.93bn as its shift away from catalogue retailing to online continued to pay off.
Last month it announced the appointment of Henry Birch, currently boss of casinos operator Rank Group, as its new chief executive. He will join later this year.
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Why isn't anything more made of cases like this?
If those jobs were threatened by the company moving overseas then the government would be being pressured into intervening and offering incentives to stay.
If they were natives being threatened by under-cutting foreigners then the usual faces would be everywhere standing up for people's rights and what a disgrace it is.
But automation, nothing. It's just seen as inevitable, unavoidable. Thousands of jobs thrown on the scrap heap and not a dicky bird.
Any chance of us all opening our eyes and fighting back?
If those jobs were threatened by the company moving overseas then the government would be being pressured into intervening and offering incentives to stay.
If they were natives being threatened by under-cutting foreigners then the usual faces would be everywhere standing up for people's rights and what a disgrace it is.
But automation, nothing. It's just seen as inevitable, unavoidable. Thousands of jobs thrown on the scrap heap and not a dicky bird.
Any chance of us all opening our eyes and fighting back?
They could carry on and wind up uncompetitive and bankrupt.
This is the downward pressure a.k.a 'race to the bottom' that innovation brings.
Disruption ends with fewer people who have greater pools of finance.
What happened when the Industrial Revolution created the Loom and laid off cotton workers?
Yep, they changed the law to make the destruction of machines a capital offence.
Disruption ends with fewer people who have greater pools of finance.
What happened when the Industrial Revolution created the Loom and laid off cotton workers?
Yep, they changed the law to make the destruction of machines a capital offence.
Marx's alienation of the worker summed up in 2 mins.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ
Its actually called Shareholder Value Maximisation.
The trick in making people think that the workforce is valued, until which time they can fire the lot of them, which generally follows sometime after they have sponked away the pension fund.
All the while arguing they are supplying demand, when its them who create the concept of need by producing so much tat and marketing it as 'required'.
The mantra of the western world is one that follows the axiom of 'no choice' is bad, choice is better and more choice is best.
But that is wrong, because the part they never mention is the choice paradox; the time, money and effort lost in trying to find the best purchase for a particular requirement.
The trick in making people think that the workforce is valued, until which time they can fire the lot of them, which generally follows sometime after they have sponked away the pension fund.
All the while arguing they are supplying demand, when its them who create the concept of need by producing so much tat and marketing it as 'required'.
The mantra of the western world is one that follows the axiom of 'no choice' is bad, choice is better and more choice is best.
But that is wrong, because the part they never mention is the choice paradox; the time, money and effort lost in trying to find the best purchase for a particular requirement.
is it progress though?
it may improve barclay bros profits but will it provide a better service to customers?
then again......do folk care?
buying costa coffee instead of local suppliers who also pay tax suggests
folk dont care.
it's good that some still care enough!
it may improve barclay bros profits but will it provide a better service to customers?
then again......do folk care?
buying costa coffee instead of local suppliers who also pay tax suggests
folk dont care.
it's good that some still care enough!
Plus the ever diminishing shelf-life of 'things' coupled with companies protecting information and creating division so they can maximise profit.
Whos going to buy the products of the future since productivity and wage inflation have been severed?
The answer is the products will be free and the user will be the commodity, controlled and denied at the whims of the sovereign individuals.
Whos going to buy the products of the future since productivity and wage inflation have been severed?
The answer is the products will be free and the user will be the commodity, controlled and denied at the whims of the sovereign individuals.
Been going on since the start of the Industrial age and speeded up with computers.
Pick an Industry. Farming, Car Making, Bookies, Accountancy, Fishing and etc etc.
Pick an Industry. Farming, Car Making, Bookies, Accountancy, Fishing and etc etc.
there are more staff in bookies now than 30 years ago
because of machines, but kind of is not progress
it's humans tending new machines
because of machines, but kind of is not progress
it's humans tending new machines
Apr 12, 2018 -- 7:56PM, akabula wrote:
Been going on since the start of the Industrial age and speeded up with computers.Pick an Industry. Farming, Car Making, Bookies, Accountancy, Fishing and etc etc.
go back even further. they closed the mines. people thought they'd never work again. new jobs came up. new opportunities.
Most single manned at night, no settlers needed and less shops now than 30 years ago.
As I said that's progress for you.
As I said that's progress for you.
less shops?
open earlier, less pay no doubt, but more man hours
open earlier, less pay no doubt, but more man hours
take the fobts away and the shops will close
thats progress for you
thats progress for you
donny osmond
When was the last time you were in a bookies? For how wrong you are probably not in the last 15 years.
If you had been (not that it's anything to be proud of) you would know that the biggest issue regarding staff is 'SINGLE MANNING' hence less staff covering the same hours.
When was the last time you were in a bookies? For how wrong you are probably not in the last 15 years.
If you had been (not that it's anything to be proud of) you would know that the biggest issue regarding staff is 'SINGLE MANNING' hence less staff covering the same hours.
Betting_masta
That’s actually wrong. People always assessed the problem by giving it the benefit of the doubt, but the fact is that innovation is non-linear (i.e. the rate of change is exponential).
Each time technology displaces the human and creates opportunity it’s called a GPT (General Purpose Technology) which initially creates off shoots that provide employment opportunities and growth, but in every instance this is temporary and growth flatlines or plateau, while man power only ever increases (population growth)
The evidence is much easier to see than people realise, it’s the masking of the problem by making employment figures look better by using new part time employment that would once have been full time labour.
What that means is the collective man hours available to number of people actually reduce over time, more people become self employed hiring fewer people.....
That’s actually wrong. People always assessed the problem by giving it the benefit of the doubt, but the fact is that innovation is non-linear (i.e. the rate of change is exponential).
Each time technology displaces the human and creates opportunity it’s called a GPT (General Purpose Technology) which initially creates off shoots that provide employment opportunities and growth, but in every instance this is temporary and growth flatlines or plateau, while man power only ever increases (population growth)
The evidence is much easier to see than people realise, it’s the masking of the problem by making employment figures look better by using new part time employment that would once have been full time labour.
What that means is the collective man hours available to number of people actually reduce over time, more people become self employed hiring fewer people.....
Incidentally, the reason it’s not been a problem is because the rate of change, although ever increasing has been relatively slow looking backwards through history, it’s only released low skilled labour in jobs that were manual.
As the rate of change increases going forward the type of redundancy of the human also increases, as more skilled jobs are lost as well as less skilled.
There will come a point that change itself is so disruptive that humans who need to train for years to acquire the skill set to do a job will be made redundant before they qualify, meaning people won’t even know which jobs to train in.
People think that creativity is human owned and unique, it’s not.
The very template to create is no different to any other formula (the recreation of aesthetic accordance with what humans perceive as beauty is simply an equation that mimics nature)
That means computers have no boundary and no special expertise.
As for ‘free thinking’ that is just the random collection of pairing 2 or more variables called recombination innovation.
The only grace you have is that you might be dead before massive unemployment reaches tipping level.
As the rate of change increases going forward the type of redundancy of the human also increases, as more skilled jobs are lost as well as less skilled.
There will come a point that change itself is so disruptive that humans who need to train for years to acquire the skill set to do a job will be made redundant before they qualify, meaning people won’t even know which jobs to train in.
People think that creativity is human owned and unique, it’s not.
The very template to create is no different to any other formula (the recreation of aesthetic accordance with what humans perceive as beauty is simply an equation that mimics nature)
That means computers have no boundary and no special expertise.
As for ‘free thinking’ that is just the random collection of pairing 2 or more variables called recombination innovation.
The only grace you have is that you might be dead before massive unemployment reaches tipping level.
Finally
Unless capitalism itself changes it won’t be the cockroach that inherits the earth it will be the quantum computing software geek, the ones who own the rights to the software that makes more and more redundant (the likes of mark zuckerberg who disrupts physical work in numerous sectors and collects all their pay packets)
The human will be reliant on how those people decide to share wealth, the danger being that as life expectancy extends those people live longer before donating back the finance they took (if they ever decide to).
Unless capitalism itself changes it won’t be the cockroach that inherits the earth it will be the quantum computing software geek, the ones who own the rights to the software that makes more and more redundant (the likes of mark zuckerberg who disrupts physical work in numerous sectors and collects all their pay packets)
The human will be reliant on how those people decide to share wealth, the danger being that as life expectancy extends those people live longer before donating back the finance they took (if they ever decide to).
Load of tripe.
In the fifties so I'm told, the Daily Mirror published an edition with a giant robot on its front page with the title ''Robot Revolution.'' Which forecast that workers were going to be replaced by robots before long.
At the same time Bertrand Russell the philosopher was going around the country doing lectures, telling us how much leisure time we would have on our hands after automation had replaced workers. And coming soon.
In 2016 the Daily Mirror issued an edition with the same title, and with the same theme as the one published more than half a century before.
And in another fifty years time if they're still around, no doubt the daily Mirror will be making the same forecast of joblessness amongst the masses as the one they made a century before.
As I said ''load of tripe.''
In the fifties so I'm told, the Daily Mirror published an edition with a giant robot on its front page with the title ''Robot Revolution.'' Which forecast that workers were going to be replaced by robots before long.
At the same time Bertrand Russell the philosopher was going around the country doing lectures, telling us how much leisure time we would have on our hands after automation had replaced workers. And coming soon.
In 2016 the Daily Mirror issued an edition with the same title, and with the same theme as the one published more than half a century before.
And in another fifty years time if they're still around, no doubt the daily Mirror will be making the same forecast of joblessness amongst the masses as the one they made a century before.
As I said ''load of tripe.''
50 years ago the mirror was recycled into fish and chip wrapping
now it cant be, ....progress?
now it cant be, ....progress?
Dr Crippen,
While I’m not prepared to venture down a route defending a tabloid newspaper, I will suggest why what they frivolously predicted as a future materialised differently.
In short; politics.
What people could not forecast was the advent of the Information Age which we now inhabit, this as I mentioned earlier is because technological advance is non-linear, if it were linear then we could pretty accurately predict how the future will play out.....much of this is nature itself, often referred to as chaos theory.
Western democracies are portrayed as being ‘bottom up’ societies where everyone is believed equal and all opinions reasoned up and fair play being at the centre. People then are said to have had an equal role in deciding and shaping the environment they live in and hold wrong doers to account.
The reality is that our version of democracy is actually ‘top down’. People with money essentially invest into political ideologies who then create the agendas and the exposure to the news etc that fall inline with the political narrative, they then give the information (or hold it back) to give the impression the electorate is making informed choices.
Essentially we get the governments we deserve through miss information and manipulation and are then told we made that choice.
The utopia of a workless society was never going to be allowed, because those who subscribe to the ideology of greed don’t want ‘lesser’ individuals to have what all people desire most, that being freedom, because freedom is what the ultimate goal is of the individual within capitalism, and they only achieve it once they have made enough money to break the shackle placed on every human born into it at birth.
It’s about wanting to feel superior.
Now you might argue that the technology is lacking to create a purely workless society and you would be correct, but as I said above, the only people that have been effected so far are low skilled workers, but that is changing radically as driverless cars, drones, manufacturing techniques, shopping etc etc all incorporate means of business that lowers the value of the workforce.
What we have actually seen is that instead of more leisure time available for the poor (those with capital investments in those companies are protected in respect that the employee will be fired or disincentivised before the company is allowed to fail) they are actually instead given software by those disrupters for free and used as marketing analysis, all the while politicians have turned up the algorithm to force society to keep taking part time work instead of having time doing nothing.
Quite simply, enterprise doesn’t want people doing nothing, and as Dewey said; ‘politics is the shadow cast by business’
While I’m not prepared to venture down a route defending a tabloid newspaper, I will suggest why what they frivolously predicted as a future materialised differently.
In short; politics.
What people could not forecast was the advent of the Information Age which we now inhabit, this as I mentioned earlier is because technological advance is non-linear, if it were linear then we could pretty accurately predict how the future will play out.....much of this is nature itself, often referred to as chaos theory.
Western democracies are portrayed as being ‘bottom up’ societies where everyone is believed equal and all opinions reasoned up and fair play being at the centre. People then are said to have had an equal role in deciding and shaping the environment they live in and hold wrong doers to account.
The reality is that our version of democracy is actually ‘top down’. People with money essentially invest into political ideologies who then create the agendas and the exposure to the news etc that fall inline with the political narrative, they then give the information (or hold it back) to give the impression the electorate is making informed choices.
Essentially we get the governments we deserve through miss information and manipulation and are then told we made that choice.
The utopia of a workless society was never going to be allowed, because those who subscribe to the ideology of greed don’t want ‘lesser’ individuals to have what all people desire most, that being freedom, because freedom is what the ultimate goal is of the individual within capitalism, and they only achieve it once they have made enough money to break the shackle placed on every human born into it at birth.
It’s about wanting to feel superior.
Now you might argue that the technology is lacking to create a purely workless society and you would be correct, but as I said above, the only people that have been effected so far are low skilled workers, but that is changing radically as driverless cars, drones, manufacturing techniques, shopping etc etc all incorporate means of business that lowers the value of the workforce.
What we have actually seen is that instead of more leisure time available for the poor (those with capital investments in those companies are protected in respect that the employee will be fired or disincentivised before the company is allowed to fail) they are actually instead given software by those disrupters for free and used as marketing analysis, all the while politicians have turned up the algorithm to force society to keep taking part time work instead of having time doing nothing.
Quite simply, enterprise doesn’t want people doing nothing, and as Dewey said; ‘politics is the shadow cast by business’
donny osmond
13 Apr 18 10:20
Joined: 02 Mar 08
| Topic/replies: 75,011 | Blogger: donny osmond's blog
denzil
dont you read the forum?
Yes your 20:39 post is not correct my comments have nothing to do with the overall conversation just that post.
13 Apr 18 10:20
Joined: 02 Mar 08
| Topic/replies: 75,011 | Blogger: donny osmond's blog
denzil
dont you read the forum?
Yes your 20:39 post is not correct my comments have nothing to do with the overall conversation just that post.
i was replying to the question you asked and then answered with a bizarre and incorrect assumption
donny osmond 12 Apr 18 19:35 Joined: 02 Mar 08 | Topic/replies: 75,020 | Blogger: donny osmond's blog
then again......do folk care?
buying costa coffee instead of local suppliers who also pay tax suggests
folk dont care.
This is an important point - plenty of people preach about using local suppliers and then go to Costa/Tesco/etc. because it's cheaper.
Or moan about globalisation and big companies not paying taxes - then still buy from Amazon because it's a few quid cheaper.
then again......do folk care?
buying costa coffee instead of local suppliers who also pay tax suggests
folk dont care.
This is an important point - plenty of people preach about using local suppliers and then go to Costa/Tesco/etc. because it's cheaper.
Or moan about globalisation and big companies not paying taxes - then still buy from Amazon because it's a few quid cheaper.
It appears that there will be less labouring jobs around in future. Why have people been telling us we need to import low wage earners for the last few years? Did none of the experts see this coming, and what will happen to all the people we imported??
A very good point saddo, and they knew exactly what would come of it.
I'm guessing a lot of em will end up living of those who still have a job Dr.
What was the point of flooding the country with people we don't need or want?
They must have had some reason for it?
Keeping wages down was only part of it.
I know a nationalistic thinking government would not have done it.
They must have had some reason for it?
Keeping wages down was only part of it.
I know a nationalistic thinking government would not have done it.
Cheers. I knew it'd be the immigrants fault. Shame it took so long to get there. Stand down world.
It's not the fault of the immigrants PP.
That's not nice putting the blame onto them. Sounds like you don't like immigrants.
That's not nice putting the blame onto them. Sounds like you don't like immigrants.
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