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Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

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Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#21

Post by simtel20 »

hughes wrote: post #14
bootload wrote: post #2

"the salaries of pastry makers in the Chicago area do not appear to have budged much, if at all. The key to this puzzle tells us a lot about why the American economy isn’t necessarily behaving the way workers have traditionally assumed. ... Employers, according to those in the industry, have increasingly turned to less experienced workers to ensure the flow of sweets" The drive to employ cheaper, okay workers in acti…

Does a more expensive pastry chef produce more expensive pastry? Or can a more experienced chef produce higher volume also? If the cost of the pastry increases with the cost of the chef, then it's entirely reasonable that there is a lower demand for more expensive pastry and therefore a lower demand for more expensive pastry chefs. With software development it's a little different - it's entirely possible for a more…

I'm noticing that you are asking a question, and then ask another question, put forward a straw man, and then say:

> With software development it's a little different

without having answered any questions with facts nor citing any references or even anecdotes to support the notion that there is a difference in the jobs or the impacts to the businesses in their respective industries.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#22

Post by dcre »

internaut wrote: post #16

There are a number of reasons why wages might not rise that have nothing to do with free market supply and demand. The most obvious is you could control wages by being the owner of inelastic goods your workers require to live, such as housing. I think this is how the feudal system worked originally, workers produced cereals but the Land and the worker's cottages were both owned by the Landlord. If the price of bread…

...what? If I could upvote the top half and downvote the second I would.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#23

Post by in_cahoots »

hughes wrote: post #14
bootload wrote: post #2

"the salaries of pastry makers in the Chicago area do not appear to have budged much, if at all. The key to this puzzle tells us a lot about why the American economy isn’t necessarily behaving the way workers have traditionally assumed. ... Employers, according to those in the industry, have increasingly turned to less experienced workers to ensure the flow of sweets" The drive to employ cheaper, okay workers in acti…

Does a more expensive pastry chef produce more expensive pastry? Or can a more experienced chef produce higher volume also? If the cost of the pastry increases with the cost of the chef, then it's entirely reasonable that there is a lower demand for more expensive pastry and therefore a lower demand for more expensive pastry chefs. With software development it's a little different - it's entirely possible for a more…

I'm not sure that your two scenarios are as different as you suggest. An expensive pastry chef may produce fewer pastries (I don't see why it would be more expensive otherwise if the ingredients are the same), but the higher quality may also yield more sales. I can bake you a muffin, but you definitely wouldn't want to pay for it.

For the second scenario, most companies don't need the mythical 10x programmer. The correlation between code quality and profit isn't any clearer to me than the correlation between pastry quality and profit. Most businesses survive on "good enough", and aren't willing to pay a dime more than what's required to meet that threshold.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#24

Post by AlexC04 »

davidw wrote: post #12
wskinner wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps Americans are OK with the pastries produced by lower-skilled workers. Maybe they can't taste a difference.

There's definitely something to this: I spent most of the last 15 years in Italy, where people care about their food. They care a lot , and will absolutely discriminate between various tomatoes based on where they're grown, different kinds of pasta, and many other things to boot. In the US, I think we tend to just look at the price and mostly go by that if the product is not clearly awful. It is changing though: it's…

It seems he's retitled the book to "An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies by Tyler Cowen (2013) Paperback Paperback"

I do like yours better, but suspect that'd be less popular stateside

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#25

Post by uremog »

riskable wrote: post #19
hughes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a more expensive pastry chef produce more expensive pastry? Or can a more experienced chef produce higher volume also? If the cost of the pastry increases with the cost of the chef, then it's entirely reasonable that there is a lower demand for more expensive pastry and therefore a lower demand for more expensive pastry chefs. With software development it's a little different - it's entirely possible for a more…

Not only that but a cheap, inexperienced dev can create negative value. Not just in the product that they're working on but your entire brand. Just ask LinkedIn or Yahoo if it was a good idea to put some ignorant fool in charge of the system that stored passwords. Aside: I'm sure that person is worth more now because they won't make such mistakes (again)! Rant: Looking towards the future I want to know which ignorant…

Bad chefs create negative value just as easily. Wasted ingredients. Bad product that looks ok and leads to unhappy customers. Etc.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#26

Post by harryh »

woopwoop wrote: post #20

Part of the reason could be the tipping system. It is impossible to raise the price of the food in your restaurant without giving a raise to your waitstaff, since almost everyone tips a fixed percentage. So if you want to give a raise to your chef, you want to fund it with a price increase, but you can't do that without giving a raise to your waiters.

There is definitely some evidence for this hypothesis. If you read about the restaurant industry you'll see a lot of comments from restauranteurs that seem to indicate that they think the salary ratios between FOH and BOH staff are off.

We've had a couple of restaurants in NYC go tip free, instead building the cost of service into the base cost of menu items. Unfortunately it appears that this can be a challenge because consumers aren't used to the higher cost menu items. Even though a $30 entre with no tip is roughly the same cost as a $25 entre where a tip is expected apparently consumer behavior changed significantly. Quite a few places have abandoned their gratuity free plans after a couple of months of testing.

There might be a bit of a prisoners dilemma problem here. If every restaurant eliminated tipping consumers would soon get used to new prices, but when only a few do they stick out as feeling more expensive (even if they really aren't).

We might currently live in a stable but non-optimal equilibria.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#27

Post by Shebanator »

eva1984 wrote: post #15

> For the profession, the downside is that it can be hard to scratch out a middle-class living. Middle-class living meaning? If it consists owning a property, then...you might need to adjust your definition of middle-class then.

FYI: In Santa Clara Country there is a related proposal to require large employers to offer full-time employment to existing employees rather than just hiring more part-time employees with no benefits: http://opportunitytowork.org/

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#28

Post by zanny »

riskable wrote: post #19
hughes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a more expensive pastry chef produce more expensive pastry? Or can a more experienced chef produce higher volume also? If the cost of the pastry increases with the cost of the chef, then it's entirely reasonable that there is a lower demand for more expensive pastry and therefore a lower demand for more expensive pastry chefs. With software development it's a little different - it's entirely possible for a more…

Not only that but a cheap, inexperienced dev can create negative value. Not just in the product that they're working on but your entire brand. Just ask LinkedIn or Yahoo if it was a good idea to put some ignorant fool in charge of the system that stored passwords. Aside: I'm sure that person is worth more now because they won't make such mistakes (again)! Rant: Looking towards the future I want to know which ignorant…

Cheap, inexperienced pastry chefs can also ruin a restaurants reputation if they screw up too badly. You get the quality you pay for.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#29

Post by mc32 »

bootload wrote: post #2

"the salaries of pastry makers in the Chicago area do not appear to have budged much, if at all. The key to this puzzle tells us a lot about why the American economy isn’t necessarily behaving the way workers have traditionally assumed. ... Employers, according to those in the industry, have increasingly turned to less experienced workers to ensure the flow of sweets" The drive to employ cheaper, okay workers in acti…

Problem is price for pastries is more or less elastic.

I'll pay $2 to $4 for a croissant/crescent but I'm not going to pay more than that. An $8 croissant isn't going to be any better because the preparer gets paid more. It may taste marginally better with more expensive ingredients, but not because the chef/baker/baxter is paid more.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#30

Post by danharaj »

harryh wrote: post #26
woopwoop wrote: post #20

Part of the reason could be the tipping system. It is impossible to raise the price of the food in your restaurant without giving a raise to your waitstaff, since almost everyone tips a fixed percentage. So if you want to give a raise to your chef, you want to fund it with a price increase, but you can't do that without giving a raise to your waiters.

There is definitely some evidence for this hypothesis. If you read about the restaurant industry you'll see a lot of comments from restauranteurs that seem to indicate that they think the salary ratios between FOH and BOH staff are off. We've had a couple of restaurants in NYC go tip free, instead building the cost of service into the base cost of menu items. Unfortunately it appears that this can be a challenge beca…

Sounds like something an ordinance could solve.
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