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Japanese Combini Uses Overseas-Operated Avatars for Night Shifts
How do you keep combini in Japan operating 24 hours a day during a labor shortage? Lawson thinks it has the answer.
Japanese companies struggling to fill jobs are looking for alternative — and, they hope, cheap — ways to supplement their workforces. Japanese convenience store (combini) chain Lawson is expanding on one such solution: self-checkout counters manned by workers who don’t even live in Japan.
Combini have been especially hard hit by Japan’s ongoing labor shortage. Population decline has made it harder to find help. Many (hello, I’m many) would also argue that the country’s piss-poor wages don’t incentivize people to work.
One workaround that combini employ is hiring overseas workers here on student visas. Part-time convenience store work doesn’t qualify one for a visa — but people here for other reasons, such as education, can work so long as they stay within their visa’s specific restrictions.
Lawson, however, thinks it’s found a better solution: the Internet.
In 2022, Japan’s third-largest combini chain announced it was looking for remote operators to help power its new self-checkout avatars, Aoi and Sorato. The avatars, developed by AVITA, enable a remote worker to help people who might have issues operating Lawson’s…
