This thread has taken a strange tangent into illegal immigration. I brought up immigration period—not getting into illegality at all–as a way our population has stayed steady and filled jobs.
There seems to be a sentiment among some that any immigration is illegal immigration and therefore not desirable. Well, short of ordering citizens to crank out babies, this country’s population is not keeping up.
We were discussing job openings, and I mentioned the people who often fill those jobs, and then things went off the rails into politics.
Assuming that “them/they” means the workers without proper I-9 papers, isn’t it the case that some of the less upstanding employers prefer them because they can be easily abused and cheated due to their reluctance to complain to the government about illegal labor practices and the like?
When Martha Stewart’s employees complained, she threatened to turn them into immigration if they didn’t knock it off!
On a more serious note, if employers were investigated with more vigor and punished more severely for hiring the undocumented, maybe it would stop or at least lesson?
I tried to take friends to my favorite local restaurant after the lunch hour yesterday. There were plenty of empty tables but they said there would be at least a 45 minute wait! And this was after Labor Day when all the tourists go home.
Resort towns have always suffered from a lack of staff after labor day. Some states, like Minn, even have laws preventing state colleges and universities from starting until after labor day (or Sept 1, or some other really late date) to allow camps and resorts to keep their college kid staff until the end of summer, but after that they can’t keep staff for the beautiful September and October days when a few customers would like to eat there. But not often. And not a whole lot of them daily.
We have friends who own a very popular casual seafood restaurant in southern Maine. Yesterday, they posted on Facebook that they had to suspend telephone orders due to lack of staff. Today they posted that they could not open at all until 5 pm for the same reason. I know they pay well and treat their employees fairly. Maybe the tourists are sticking around longer than usual since they couldn’t go anywhere last year.
Southern Maine is within easy striking distance of Massachusetts. They might be super busy because of southern New Englanders taking vacations locally. Wife and I had our trip to Western Canada cancelled, so we certainly are among those looking for somewhere to get away to that isn’t too far away.
I absolutely think that people are trying to vacation after Labor Day since they could actually get accommodations then. If your kids are out of school, why not. I love traveling in September.
I had a doctors appointment in Traverse City, Michigan yesterday. I purposely made this appointment for after Labor Day because I was hoping it would be quieter. I had a difficult time finding one of my favorite restaurants open on a Wednesday afternoon. Lots of places are closed for lunch now, are closed midweek. The chain places were open I think. Local places have reduced hours. Much different than previous years.
Not specific to hotel and restaurant jobs, but here is a page describing how employers with open jobs and people looking for jobs do not match each other:
If they are not getting the number/quality of employees that they want with given comp packages, employers can increase comp, deal with what they have or look for ways around worker shortage (such as automation). We have seen companies doing each and all of those currently.
Employees have to determine what they want to do as well. I know a lot of people who work in jobs they don’t necessarily like and/or who think they are underpaid. But they need to eat as they say. Not sure what people are doing who say they don’t like available jobs/pay in terms of covering living expenses.
I have a family member looking for work. Lots of “Urgently Hiring” listings in Indeed, but they seem unwilling to train new hires at all. You’re just supposed to have all the skills already. No wonder they can’t find the right workers. Pay can go up but there may be a shortage of workers trained in something that can be learned in a month or less, so despite pay, you don’t have enough of the right applicants if you’re requiring they have some exact experience level.
As far as quick serve restaurants - wow. Our local Chipotles can’t find enough people, so some are closing and limiting hours. Meanwhile the workers look so harried and make a lot of mistakes and the lines are long. Who wants to work there? Maybe our restaurant industry is just not sustainable at the prices we are paying for meals.
While nothing is simple, it seems like hospitality jobs, which never struck me as great (crazy hours, sexual harrassment, relatively low wages, often stressful working environment) to begin with, got worse. Dropped like hot potatoes by most restaurant and hotel owners (so loyalty and trust are diminished), fewer customers (meaning fewer tips for those who get tipped), more obnoxious customers, the onerous task of mask enforcement.
A number of workers took the time to build skills and get a different kind of job. And, as long as schools are not always open, parents (usually moms) have to stay home and/or work from home.
So, the job is worse and the supply of workers has gone down. Econ 101: the wages need to go up.
So many restaurants/fast food restaurants in our area (MI) have severely cut their hours due to lack of staff. They have raised their pay rate & are still unable to hire enough staff.
Restaurants fail at high rates as it is. Increase labor costs will make it that much more challenging for many of them. Expect that many of them will look to increase prices in response to higher labor costs. How willing some customers will be to pay higher prices remains to be seen (and likely that will vary by restaurant).
The prices at all restaurants have risen here. Significantly. Some also include an additional change for things like ‘back of the house’ or ‘packaging’ (so much carryout).
One bit of good news is that Colorado gave $5M to the restaurant associations to distribute to different restaurants. It looks like it is intended that most go to employees as bonuses. One estimate was that some workers would get $1500.
Starbucks raised its minimum wage in all stores to between $12-15/hr (depending on minimum wage in that city/state) yesterday. Daughter said that news (and not exactly how much she was getting as an increase) was combined with new restrictions on their ‘mark outs’ (free food and drinks).
Restaurant meals have skyrocketed in price. My DH and I were just talking about this. An entree at a mid-level independent restaurant (decent but nothing special) is $42. A burger and fries at a sit down place is $20. We went to Wendy’s the other day and the burger and fries for two was $25. So a family of four going through the Wendy’s drive thru would cost $100.
Food is getting very expensive in the stores also. There is no escaping food price inflation.
There is a fierce bidding war for restaurant staff. If they get offered $2 more per hour they jump. During the height of Covid some employers started to pay wait staff in cash so that they can collect benefits. This is what we have been told by staff at some places we frequent (I have no desire to be a whistleblower).