Americans are not only replaced by migrants, but now they are even being replaced by remote migrants.
Fast food establishments in America are starting to hire remote cashiers to save money. Cheap labour it is. You have people from the Philippines making $3 an hour, while the minimum wage in New York is $16 an hour. These remote cashiers work from the Philippines while virtually accepting orders in a New York restaurant. Here is an article in the New York Post that reads:
“A new restaurant chain in New York City is outsourcing staff to the Philippines, using screens with hostesses on Zoom calls instead of in-person employees to greet customers and help with check-out.
The shops — which specialize in fried chicken and ramen — are taking advantage of the massive wealth gap between New York City, where the minimum wage is $16 per hour and a Southeast Asian nation where hourly pay is closer to $3.75.
But when customers check out at Sansan Chicken, Sansan Ramen, or Yaso Kitchen — with locations in Manhattan, Queens, and Jersey City — they’re still prompted to add a tip of up to 18% on top of their bill.
On a recent afternoon at Sansan Chicken in Long Island City, a reporter for The Post was greeted by Pie, a 33-year-old hostess who works from her living room in the Philippine city of Subic.
The cheerful remote worker said she is employed by a company called Happy Cashier and that she enjoys her work.
Pie declined to disclose how much she was paid but said customers sometimes leave generous tips despite the fact that she’s not actually there in person.
Once, she got $40 at Yaso Kitchen in Jersey City, she said — adding that she splits tips with her manager and kitchen staff at the restaurant.
The eyebrow-raising idea has customers tied in knots — some enjoyed the novelty, while others thought the lack of human interaction stripped away something precious.
‘I think you lose an element of connecting with someone when they’re not physically there,’ one customer named Catherine said outside Sansan Ramen in LIC.
‘I also don’t know if it’s taking a job away from someone, as well. I think it’s important that we’re supporting our communities, and having people from the community connecting with their clientele.’
The dynamics of the operation seem to be cloaked in secrecy. It’s not clear if the hostesses work for the restaurant or a third-party company that hires them out.
It’s also not clear who owns the restaurants, and how much the hostesses are getting paid.
The Post could not reach the businesses’ owner, and employees would not divulge information about their bosses when a reporter asked.
Despite the fact that the new restaurants are combining two of Americans’ least favorite things — tipping and outsourcing jobs — it may be the future of customer service, says one tech expert.
Brett Goldstein, a 33-year-old tech entrepreneur who posted about Sansan Chicken on Mercer Street in Manhattan in a now-viral thread on X, pointed out that the remote staffers are a ‘clear way to cut costs’ that could lead to even more weirdly dystopian advances in the future.
‘Today, this is a Filipino woman behind a screen, controlling a POS system — but it’s not crazy to believe that probably in the next six to twelve months, this could be an AI avatar doing all the same things,’ he said.
He acknowledged that tipping could be a huge bonus for the outsourced workers — who live in a country where the median monthly wage is just $325 a month.
Pie, who has been working the job for about six months, appears to cover three different restaurants at the same time by alternating between different screens.
The remote hostesses are part of the restaurant’s allure, she said.
‘Customers come in and are surprised to find a virtual cashier,’ she said. “Some people think we’re [artificial intelligence] — they ask you if you’re real.'”
What about American citizens? The New York Post fails to add that while America is flooded with illegal immigrants, induced hyperinflation, and plagued with the normalization of sexual perversion, their jobs are now being stolen overseas.