Fast-food chain Wendy's has said that they will be introducing more self-serve kiosks at their restaurants due to minimum wage hikes and the need to offer higher wages to get better employees, leading to higher costs on the restaurants for staffing.
Investor's Business Daily reports that the kiosks will be available to all of their over 6,000 restaurants by the end of the year. It will be up to franchisees as to whether or not they will use the kiosks.
Cleveland.com says that Wendy's will also be introducing an ordering and payment app similar to those used already by other businesses.
Wendy's has also been testing a mobile ordering and payment app--think Starbucks or Taco Bell--that it hopes to make available nationally soon, the report says.
Critics of the increase of the minimum wage increases have warned that the layoffs that will occur with the increase of the kiosks at Wendy's and other fast-food restaurants. These concerns tend to be either ignored or called untrue. However, Wendy's seems to possibly be the beginning of a larger trend among fast-food restaurants nationwide. With increases in some states, such as California, it will be seen just what the effects are of raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. California is home to 258 Wendy's locations, all of which are franchises.