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

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

#91

Post by analyst74 »

B2B_human wrote: post #59
EMM_386 wrote: post #3

This is becoming a problem in many areas, and I can't imagine that the push for remote work is going to help the situation any. Unless you are living with parents, or with multiple roommates, the housing market in these cities will price you out. We have this same scenario taking place in the area I live, and NIMBY/zoning laws prevent affordable housing from being developed. I've been to town hall meetings where peop…

You sound like a big city person (i used to be one - 5 years ago before moving here). I live in Truckee. town of 16,000 people. > If the local residents are wealthy enough to live in the area, perhaps businesses have to bite the bullet, raise prices locally, and pay more for essential services like bartenders, wait staff, retail, etc I love your definition of "essential services" are bartenders and wait staff. You so…

If it's the vacationers causing problems, isn't it quite easy to enact local laws to deal with those problems? Those vacationers aren't there to oppose the solutions.

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

#92

Post by Choco31415 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #85
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A restaurants greatest costs aren't labor but rent. They pay huge amounts to landlords, amounts higher than the landlords mortgage costs. A restaurants low-wage employees then pay 50+% of their wages to other landlords to cover other mortgages. That's the real problem killing the business model: too many people shovelling too much money in exchange for permission to work/live at a particular location. A more normal s…

If landlords are charging significantly more then the mortgage costs, then what if the rent model was switched to an auction with a minimum set at the landlord mortgage costs plus some percentage on top? That way the landlord gets what they need and the pricing is not arbitrary, but at least fixed to some realistic measure.

Note: I’m not very familiar with the situation, just ideating.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #81
legutierr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Capitalist market economies are usually very efficient at allocating such resources Sure, as long as "efficient" means "most aligns with the desires of capital".

[deleted]

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

#94

Post by analyst74 »

astura wrote: post #61
dboreham wrote: post #6

Perhaps consider paying people more.

Some of the businesses interview in this article claim they start their employees at $20/he but that's not enough to pay rent and too much to qualify for government assistance.

To me that sounds like labour cost were subsidized by welfare in the past, and now needs to adjust for market realities. This causes shock to the market, but should eventually find an equilibrium.

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

#95

Post by jrs235 »

EMM_386 wrote: post #3

This is becoming a problem in many areas, and I can't imagine that the push for remote work is going to help the situation any. Unless you are living with parents, or with multiple roommates, the housing market in these cities will price you out. We have this same scenario taking place in the area I live, and NIMBY/zoning laws prevent affordable housing from being developed. I've been to town hall meetings where peop…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27764905

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

#96

Post by aazaa »

> “You put an ad out and nobody even interviews,” Wilderotter said, echoing Barrios.

That's because you're not offering enough money. Raise it by 20%, 50%, 200%. Keep raising it until you get qualified applicants.

You will eventually find a price that attracts the people your business needs. And if that price is too high to turn a profit and there's no other way, shut down.

Article after article with business owners acting like they're entitled to pay workers sub-market and/or sub-living wages.

Time to wake up and face the fact that large sectors of the service economy are no longer viable due to decades of misreported inflation, trickle-down economics, and disastrous, unchecked monetary policy blunders.

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

#97

Post by motioncuty »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13
EMM_386 wrote: post #3

This is becoming a problem in many areas, and I can't imagine that the push for remote work is going to help the situation any. Unless you are living with parents, or with multiple roommates, the housing market in these cities will price you out. We have this same scenario taking place in the area I live, and NIMBY/zoning laws prevent affordable housing from being developed. I've been to town hall meetings where peop…

> NIMBY/zoning laws prevent affordable housing from being developed Jackson Hole reserves some housing for those who work full time for an employer in Teton County [1]. This strikes me as a reasonable balance between wanting to control housing stock and maintaining access to cheap labour. [1] https://www.tetoncountywy.gov/720/Workforce-Homes

And then you are stuck at the will of that one company. My first roommate in a mountain town was not like by his manager, got fired and kicked out of company housing. Many people will take shelter in their cars in the national forrest for the summer. These mountain town workforces are essentially homeless, (well in many ways by choice) but these towns keep leveraging US public property for supplying land for camping, keeping wages lower than the housing and utility prices demand. Furthermore, how fun can a town full of transient vacationers really be if all the youths cant manage to go out or have a place to party.

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

#98

Post by [deleted] »

analyst74 wrote: post #91
B2B_human wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like a big city person (i used to be one - 5 years ago before moving here). I live in Truckee. town of 16,000 people. > If the local residents are wealthy enough to live in the area, perhaps businesses have to bite the bullet, raise prices locally, and pay more for essential services like bartenders, wait staff, retail, etc I love your definition of "essential services" are bartenders and wait staff. You so…

If it's the vacationers causing problems, isn't it quite easy to enact local laws to deal with those problems? Those vacationers aren't there to oppose the solutions.

[deleted]

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

#99

Post by motioncuty »

analyst74 wrote: post #91
B2B_human wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like a big city person (i used to be one - 5 years ago before moving here). I live in Truckee. town of 16,000 people. > If the local residents are wealthy enough to live in the area, perhaps businesses have to bite the bullet, raise prices locally, and pay more for essential services like bartenders, wait staff, retail, etc I love your definition of "essential services" are bartenders and wait staff. You so…

If it's the vacationers causing problems, isn't it quite easy to enact local laws to deal with those problems? Those vacationers aren't there to oppose the solutions.

These towns are owned in many ways by Vail resorts. Economically and politically.

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

#100

Post by motioncuty »

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…

The issue is that all the business models in Tahoe seem to be failing, you can't have a modern town without a coffee shop, but the business cant generate enough to pay a few year round employees to live in comuting distance. A town cant be completely served by the children of second home owners the entire year.
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