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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

#121

Post by tinfoilheadsock »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #109
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…

NIMBYS are the most short-sighted people ever. And somehow every boomer I know became a NIMBY in the last decade. At least in France they don’t listen to them, unlike in the Bay Area. Can’t wait until this explodes and we can have sane housing policies again.

The 'problem' (for California) is that the fast growing companies will have already moved elsewhere. (Problem in quotes because it is an implied goal for NIMBYs) Perhaps even to other countries with sane housing policy. So this should be something on the federal governments radar.

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

#122

Post by skt5 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #118
Choco31415 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why should rent be higher than mortgage costs? Why should renters pay down principal, effectively purchasing the property for the landlord? In the past, landlords owned property and rented it out. If there was a mortgage, rent covered the interest payments rather than principal (interest rates were once far higher than today) and rents were generally lower than mortgage costs. If rent is higher than mortgage costs, t…

In cases where rent exceeds the mortgage, I think the reasons would be to cover the cost of capital, risk, and operational expenses. In this case, the long term expected value of the property might be flat or growing at a lower than average rate so future expected gains can't be used to offset short term losses.

If this wasn't the case, in theory renters would just become buyers themselves.

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

#123

Post by novok »

ashtonkem wrote: post #77
dragonwriter wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not going to change until the UI benefits and eviction moratoriums end. What person is going to go and work all day for less money?? Or, employers could just offer more money. > Seriously, if you don't work right now you are getting UI, Food Stamps, and you don't have to pay rent. Note that there is not a rent moratorium, just an eviction moratorium, so unless you plan is to both get evicted and deal with the…

> Note that there is not a rent moratorium, just an eviction moratorium We take this as a given, but historically this is actually quite unusual. It was not uncommon for kings in the past to declare a “debt jubilee” where all debts public and private were null and void. These were commonly called for both important royal events, as well as locally after natural disasters struck. Obviously there are knock on effects t…

Did bankruptcy exist back then too? I think debtors prisons were a thing.

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

#124

Post by mindslight »

mathattack wrote: post #52

This seems like markets adjusting to inflation. It’s a combination of real estate NIMBYism and COVID. If the cost of real estate goes up, you have to pay people more or they move. And to pay people more you may have to charge more for the goods and services. Rent control and government owned housing tend to work less than increasing the housing stock. (Affordable housing problems only help a small fraction of people…

> you have to pay people more or they move

I wonder if the underlying cause is the discrete punch of Covid having flushed out what were otherwise marginally-unsustainable living situations. Imagine: your rent is uncomfortably high for your wage, but you're barely treading water. The one time expense of quitting your job and moving to a lower cost of living area would disrupt you too much, and so you remain even though it sucks. Then Covid hits, your job goes away, your income (if any) is now decoupled from having a specific residence, and so you move. Even if your previous job comes back, and even if they offer to pay more, you certainly aren't going to move back into that trap!

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

#125

Post by tinfoilheadsock »

hattmall wrote: post #18

It's not going to change until the UI benefits and eviction moratoriums end. What person is going to go and work all day for less money?? Seriously, if you don't work right now you are getting UI, Food Stamps, and you don't have to pay rent. It literally doesn't not make economic sense to work right now for many people.

if its any consolation, the sheriff's office in charge of evictions will be hiring...and if the sheriff cant pay market rate...people can live rent-free! (for a while longer)

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

#126

Post by bsagdiyev »

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…

You sound exactly like the people who moved up to Lake Arrowhead and ruined it, I ended up leaving when I got told by a flatlander to leave “their” mountain, where they’d lived for a lot shorter time than I had. I realized then it was losing its appeal and wouldn’t be a place I’d continue to enjoy with those sorts increasingly moving up there. For a resort area the people who work the service jobs are essential. Those businesses are the backbone of the community most of the time. Without them it would lose the traits that make it desirable to live.

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

#127

Post by ActorNightly »

aazaa wrote: post #96

> “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…

The issue is that a lot of places are ran on thin profit margins. You would have to raise the price of goods, which then means you have to raise the quality of goods as well to outcompete highly optimized chain restaurants.

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

#128

Post by mathattack »

mindslight wrote: post #124
mathattack wrote: post #52

This seems like markets adjusting to inflation. It’s a combination of real estate NIMBYism and COVID. If the cost of real estate goes up, you have to pay people more or they move. And to pay people more you may have to charge more for the goods and services. Rent control and government owned housing tend to work less than increasing the housing stock. (Affordable housing problems only help a small fraction of people…

> you have to pay people more or they move I wonder if the underlying cause is the discrete punch of Covid having flushed out what were otherwise marginally-unsustainable living situations. Imagine: your rent is uncomfortably high for your wage, but you're barely treading water. The one time expense of quitting your job and moving to a lower cost of living area would disrupt you too much, and so you remain even thoug…

Also less people producing things so prices rise. (Global phenomenon - this might recede here but supple is constrained globally)

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

#129

Post by seanp2k2 »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #109
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…

NIMBYS are the most short-sighted people ever. And somehow every boomer I know became a NIMBY in the last decade. At least in France they don’t listen to them, unlike in the Bay Area. Can’t wait until this explodes and we can have sane housing policies again.

It won’t explode, though. It won’t explode so hard that we couldn’t even pass prop 15 back in November to close some of the loophole that the biggest would-be business taxpayers in CA currently abuse https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/15/ // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_15

The fear-mongering is always about “first they’re coming for companies, then they’re coming for your home property tax!” and people believe it. With that said, I really hope they DO come for home property taxes, as right now it’s a big part of what encourages the wealthy and previous generations to stay put and never sell (or become landlords and move elsewhere) while pricing new homeowners out of the market, as now in addition to the mortgage on that seven-figure starter home they’re saddled with a few-grand-per-month tax bill.

https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/ has more info.

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

#130

Post by seanp2k2 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #127
aazaa wrote: post #96

> “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…

The issue is that a lot of places are ran on thin profit margins. You would have to raise the price of goods, which then means you have to raise the quality of goods as well to outcompete highly optimized chain restaurants.

So the alternative seems to be…don’t do that, and be short-staffed while paying those who do continue to show up poverty-level wages for an ever-increasing workload. The quality of service and the reputation of the business suffers that way, causing them to fail or at least give up more business to other places that are raising prices accordingly.
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