Human Atm Machine Quotes

Even when there’s automation, this doesn’t always create the dire results we expect. Consider automatic teller machines (ATMs). When they were first rolled out in the late 1970s, there were serious concerns about bank teller layoffs. Between 1995 and 2010, the number of ATMs in America went from one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand, but mass teller unemployment wasn’t the result. Because ATMs made it cheaper to operate banks, the number of banks grew by 40 percent. More banks meant more jobs for human bank tellers, which is why bank teller employment actually rose during this period.

one ATM could do the work of no fewer than thirty-seven human tellers (and, into the bargain, rarely fell ill). In the United States, about half of all those employed in retail banking—some 500,000 people—lost their jobs between 1980 and 1995, thanks in large part to the invention of these silkily efficient machines.