Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

legutierr wrote: post #64

gotoeleven wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>If you need to hold hunger and homelessness over people’s heads in order to make them work, maybe your system is morally bankrupt? You mean the human condition? Life has always been this way and since we're not a post-scarcity society yet I don't see how any workable system would not be morally bankrupt by this standard.

> we're not a post-scarcity society yet How can we be sure that we aren't? Or rather, how will we ever be able to tell whether we are living in a post-scarcity society, when artificial scarcity is imposed by those with political power? We don't have true scarcity in housing. What we have is artificial constraints on building being imposed by the state. We also don't have scarcity in basic foodstuffs. There's plenty o…

Post by underseacables » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

djbebs wrote: post #24

underseacables wrote: post #15

“ Those who beat the real estate curve and bought property for their employees to live in before home prices skyrocketed are faring much better on the hiring front than their comrades.” So we are returning to factory towns? It seems the only solution is the cap rental prices, which traditionally doesn’t work. Maybe the city should be buying at the housing and providing it?

The solution is to not interfere in the market.

Post by sandworm101 » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #79

sandworm101 wrote: post #54

>> "Wilderotter starts his employees at $20 an hour." That's the entire problem. Everything is tied to pay. The reality is that nobody can get good labor, let alone good skilled labor, at 20$/hour. If your business model can only work by paying minimal wages then your businese model has failed. Labor costs, wage expectations, have gone up. That is a good thing for employees. I have little sympathy for anyone who thin…

I don't disagree with you here. But we need to be explicit about the implications: whole sectors of the US economy have a "failed business model" by this standard. In particular, the US model of restaurants is fundamentally based on paying minimal wages to almost all employees.

Post by labawi » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

listless wrote: post #80

spaetzleesser wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or do the unfathomable: Pay people better.

I don’t understand the “pay people more” sentiment. It _seems_ like the correct and obvious solution, but it seems like it just moves the goal line. Margins are razor thin in restaurants specifically. If you pay people more, you’ll need to raise your prices and that will offset the pay raise if it happens across the board. What am I missing?

Post by labawi » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

underseacables wrote: post #83

djbebs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to not interfere in the market.

I would agree with you typically, but it seems in this case in Tahoe, if you don’t interfere in the market, the businesses will eventually either go out of business, or the economy will stagnate. Property owners are not willing to lower their price, why should they? Businesses can only raise the money they’re willing to offer so much. They could raise prices but then you run into a tipping point where people say you…