Efficiency
Given the cost of labour around here, it's worth investing quite a lot in worker productivity. Two notable examples:
- Cashier stations at grocery stores are thoughtfully pipelined and parallelised so that one (fast, expensive) cashier doesn't waste all his or her time waiting for (slow, cheap) customers to pack their bags or fumble with change.
- The guy going around checking trash bins for recyclable cans and bottles does so on a scooter, despite the price of gas (don't ask), and covers ground dizzyingly quickly.