It is demeaning, obviously (sorry to be blunt). Some people have jobs that involve speaking about people in a demeaning way - that doesn't make that terminology not demeaning. It just makes those jobs inherently demeaning to humans in the operations of those jobs.

The human condition is inconvenient for people who benefit from speaking in this demeaning way for efficiency. It's better to accept this and adjust than to try to convince yourself and others that we can somehow stop being human (much better, considering how people react to being treated inhumanly...).