Has anyone else noticed how many restaurants and hotels are posting job openings? All across the country, many, many restaurants have signs “Now hiring”. Hotels too. I saw restaurants closed because they couldn’t find cooks!
This may be a lag post-pandemic or it could be that unemployment benefits are so good that it doesn’t pay to hold a food or hotel job anymore.
Oh I absolutely agree. I’ve seen signs everywhere.
I spoke with a woman that comes by (to help me clean my house occasionally) and she said that it doesn’t make sense for a lot of these people to return to their jobs. She has sisters who were hotel workers. Her son and daughter are waitstaff at a restaurant while going to their colleges.
The service industry workers are taxed so incredibly high by the government, on their tips, that they actually lose money and owe more than they make. They are making more money, by working less and collecting unemployment, as they regroup and retrain themselves.
Edited to add: We had this conversation yesterday with my daughter. Both my daughter and son worked at the local zoo during breaks because the pay was good, and they both said that the job wasn’t difficult. The worst part of the job were the customers. My daughter liked working the beer cart because she said the beer patrons were polite and kind. (Also, she knew how to pour beer, very well, and was often complimented on it. Those Vintner classes, at Davis, helped her a lot?? So, her managers often kept her at a beer cart.)
My son said that there was a very rude man who entered the “fancy” restaurant at the zoo. He complained loudly about everything to his server, and he finally told the server that if she had “attended college, she wouldn’t have ended up at a job like this!” The waitress just stopped in her tracks, as did most of the waitstaff and bussers, because they were ALL college students. Of course the waitress couldn’t respond. My son said that they all realized what a stupid ignorant man he was and that surprises in his food could happen.
It’s that unemployment benefits are good. It’s time to give people notice that the unemployment benefits are coming to an end, and that the eviction moratorium will not be renewed. Anyone who wants to work, can get a job now. And everyone 16 and over can be immunized.
It’s not a state by state phenomenon. I saw signs in Missouri, Michigan, California, Virginia, Utah, Nevada, all the way across the country. Travel is picking up and the workers are at home.
I know one woman who only reluctantly returned to her full time job because her part time job at Amazon and the unemployment benefits from her full time job plus the added state benefits made her more money with more time off than working her full time job.
My S was a waiter/bar tender/ bar manager for years. The life can be brutal, no real personal time or set schedules. He was bar tending while going back to school to change careers when pandemic hit. When he finally got a grocery store job he said neither love or money would get back in a bar or restaurant. Unemployment $ had nothing to do with it. He’d rather work but right now with capacity restrictions those that went back aren’t making enough money or getting good schedules.
It is not the extra $300/week that keeps people from searching for a job. It is the lack of the requirements to do so. Eons ago, when I was briefly unemployed, my state required everyone collecting unemployment make 3 documented job inquiries a week and keep a record of them. I was even audited once. And if you declined a reasonable job offer - game over. No more checks coming in.
This requirement was suspended last year. Reinstate it, and you will see more people scrambling to locate a job.
Another factor in my city is that much of the restaurant and hotel staff were college students. With the local University not fully in person a lot of the staff isn’t living in town.
At least in PA I’m pretty sure it is reinstated. H, as a business owner, received an email from the state telling him if anyone came looking for a job and turned it down he was supposed to let them know. (short version)
There are signs all over to hire people around here too. Our local grocery store even has a sign on bonus. Places looking for workers was common before Covid too as our unemployment rate even back then was super low.
I could believe some of the problem is due to lack of immigration (legal or otherwise). A lot of lower level jobs, at least around here, were filled by immigrants. I still see students working and don’t know of anyone staying home anymore due to Covid (except me, I suppose, but next school year is coming).
I’m sorry but it really drives me nuts that the statement seems to be that people are making too much on unemployment to want to work. It just grinds my gears.
Would you want to work where the customers are arguing with you because they don’t want to put on a mask? Would you want to work where every day you put your health in peril because many people think that vaccines aren’t important?
Maybe you have children at home, out of school and daycare dried up? Maybe your parents watched the kids but they’ve been isolated at home and the children can’t be vaccinated even though you have.
Maybe resort towns should make affordable housing so workers can afford to move there. Housing prices have gone up so much that it’s squeezing people who used to rent at an affordable price.
Maybe employers should offer a living wage and maybe they could offer benefits?
Maybe workers have moved on and found other jobs?
There are so many reasons that the service industry is having a tough time other than people don’t want to work.
In fact, I hope this thread gets shut down soon. That’s how annoyed I am with this.
Adding to this: if businesses cannot find workers then the businesses aren’t offering market rate pay & benefits. Why is it that the narrative so often is that “workers are lazy” rather than what seems clear “employers are cheap/not offering something desirable”?
I was being paid over $10/hr 30 years ago working at my college’s library. I was paying my daughters’ babysitters $15/hr 15 years ago. I’m not surprised at all that businesses offering $9/hr now are having a hard time filling those jobs.
Employers need to make their jobs competitive (pay and benefits) if they want workers. If you can’t survive as a business without exploiting your workforce, then go out of business. There will be another restaurant/hotel opening up. Innovate or perish…that’s the market working, right?
Adding to say that not all unemployed are happy to be on government support. Many would be happy to go to work but can’t for the reasons @deb922 listed. And it is not lack of immigration… it is lack of (affordable) childcare, because majority of those service industry jobs were filled by women. Women have been disproportionately hit by Covid unemployment.
Yes, but if the government is paying more then that’s not the market working because you’re introducing an artificial pressure. The government just prints the money it spends, businesses have to actually make the money to pay their workers and provide benefits.
If you don’t mind paying more for your hotel room, or dinner when dining out then the market will adjust. But then people complain about rising prices. Can’t have it both ways.
@BunsenBurner and @deb922 well said posts!
Women have been hit hard in the pandemic, even those I know with well paying jobs who can work from home are struggling. Childcare is expensive.
My H went last week to a place we frequently ate at pre Covid. He said our favorite wait person was back and she told him she was back because her children had just returned to school. She couldn’t work and provide supervision for her kids at the same time. Plus by the time many pay for childcare they aren’t making much. Also a lot of restaurants staff are low paying and live in multi family and roommate situations which have been harder hit by Covid.
I think it insults a lot of hardworking people to generalize that people aren’t working due to getting unemployment.
I live in a high cost of living state and city. Most restaurant and hotel workers commute as they can’t afford to live here. Same is true for teachers,nurses and other professionals. Covid has worsened the housing crunch with the tidal wave of people exiting cities since they can work from home.
It’s a complex issues on so many levels.
Artificial pressure in the market exists at all times, it just that businesses aren’t enjoying a pressure that doesn’t benefit them.
Setting an obscenely low minimum wage is an “artificial pressure”. And yet, few businesses are arguing against that one…in fact, the are arguing for the maintenance of that obscenely low wage.
As I haven’t been complaining about the cost of restaurant food (don’t usually go as I would rather be able to cook exactly what I want, so grocery stores are my main point of food contact), nor have I have been complaining about the cost of hotel facilities - I would be happy for the market to continue to figure out how to pay workers enough to have staff if they want to stay in business. One of the reasons I don’t like restaurants all that much is the substandard wages that rely upon tips to create a possible living wage. I don’t want to support that system. So I don’t.
Restaurants and hotels are by and large luxuries products. If consumers can’t afford those luxuries products without the businesses exploiting their workers, then the consumers can’t afford those products. Which may point to a larger problem - many many people’s wages are artificially depressed in order to allow businesses to take a larger than reasonable profit out of the business.
I am reminded of Henry Ford’s famous comment about a business’ workers should be able to afford a business’ product - right now, hotel workers by and large wouldn’t be able to afford to stay in the hotels they work at, and most restaurant workers wouldn’t be able to afford to regularly dine where they work. Ford is problematic in many ways, but he was right about that.
Our kids are still virtual and have been for more than a year. My 2nd grader only goes to school four days a week, 2 1/2 hours at a time in the afternoon. My older kids are offered a rotating schedule of two day or three day every other week. Days very. Care is only until 2. There is almost no way to work. This is a very HCOL place. $300 is nothing. If the eviction moratorium ends before school is in session this city is doomed.
It’s a minimum, the market ultimately set the rates. You’re right if a business doesn’t pay enough they’ll have difficulty attracting workers. But if it’s the government paying the better wage that’s not the market adjusting because the government can pay whatever it wants to pay without regard to costs and revenue.
Very small percentage of workers are paid at or below minimum wage.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm
Among those paid by the hour, 247,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 865,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 1.1 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 1.5 percent of all hourly paid workers.
Glad you aren’t complaining but prices are already rising that have little to do with wages. That’s your choice to forgo dining out or staying in hotels. But not all restaurants are high end. If those restaurants or hotels go out of business then those workers are unemployed (which isn’t so bad right now) as well as the owner (which is bad because they don’t get to collect unemployment). But that business pays taxes, pays its workers, pays its vendors/suppliers and contributes to the community…it’s tunnel vision to just focus on wages. It’s also disparaging to business owners, especially small businesses, to accuse them of exploiting their workers. Restaurants and grocery stores run on very tight margins. I agree with you regarding large hotel chains, big box retailers and Amazon, however, I also recognize, that the cost of running a business isn’t alway evident to the casual observer.
Paying grocery workers more will result in more expensive food prices at the grocery store, not just for you but everyone. Wages will always influence pricing.
I believe the federal minimum wage should be raised but $15 is too high.
$15/hr works out to $31,200 per year based upon a 40 hour work week and paid vacation. Most minimum wage jobs involve a bit of actual (tiring) work. I feel for those who have to do it for half that, though often they qualify for various subsidies via tax dollars or charities.
It also amazes me how so many feel they can’t live on what they are making even though it far exceeds minimum.
I better not say more TBH.
There is a big difference in many places between a “living” wage and minimum wage.
Probably won’t surprise anyone reading this that I am actually more than ok with grocery workers also seeing their pay increase. And no, I wouldn’t be surprised by increased costs on food either. Our food costs are ‘artificially low’ due to the artificial pressure of obscenely low wages paid to (mostly immigrant) agricultural workers and grocery workers. Maybe if everyone found out how expensive food actually would be if every worker in the supply chain were paid a living wage, they would realize how much value those workers have always supplied to our economy.
As someone who has lived elsewhere, high food costs are widespread outside of the US. I’ve paid 9 euros for a quart of strawberries, I can say there were delicious, we made darn sure there was no waste (I pulled strawberry leaves off those berries, no loping the tops off wasting produce), and I knew the ag workers in that country were paid a living wage and had a social safety net. I also recognized the luxury of choosing to buy those berries, there was cheaper produce available, but I chose to buy those.
Our economy depends on consumers being unaware of how their consumption is artificially subsidized by poor wages and benefits. Perhaps some good could come out of this pandemic if that is better recognized and we understand the actual cost of the consumer products and services we expect and demand.
I always find it funny that people are quick to point out government handouts benefitting workers at the taxpayer’s expense, but almost never point out how the government exempts most of the aforementioned businesses from paying even the extremely low minimum wage (which is a de facto subsidy that the taxpayer also pays for, btw). Both pressures are known to reduce the incentive to work, but one is much more chronic and likely will remain so.