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Restaurant workers quit at record rate

npr.org

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Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#171

Post by ruined »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #93

I go to a breakfast shop a lot, they lost around 1/2 of their staff permanently due to COVID, It majorly jostled the restaurant sector around here. I asked the owner, "Well, why'd they leave?". He claims "They're getting more on unemployment than if they worked." Well, why is that the case? Don't you provide them with enough to live on? If they're getting $500 a week from unemployment, that would mean you're paying p…

you do not get unemployment if you quit your job voluntarily. when managers say employees leave in order to collect unemployment, it's a lie.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#172

Post by GongOfFour »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

The restaurant industry has known the solution for a long time but everyone wants to pretend it would be too difficult. Stop the tipping guilt trip placed on the public, raise your prices 20%, and pay your employees a livable wage. The public will still show up to eat in your restaurant.

It's going to need to be more than 20%. There are no shortage of jobs where servers make enough to live because they make unreported cash tips.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#173

Post by wonderwonder »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #67
ashtonkem wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the industry is not sustainable then.

I agree. It seems that most people's "solutions" to this "problem" are various ways to make people's live more miserable and keep them desperate enough to work shit jobs for low pay. I guess a lot of people are just fine with having a slave class as long as it means they don't have to be inconvenienced in any way. If this industry literally cannot afford to pay people a living wage, if no one wants to work for them a…

Most eye opening part of the pandemic was the fact that in the US the majority of people dubbed as essential and forced to work were also the people paid the least. Grocery workers standing there with 2 masks on making minimum wage while the rest of us waltz in take what we need and return to the relative safety of our remote work. Then making fast food workers essential instead of paying them unemployment was just taking things to another level of pettiness.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#174

Post by gruez »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #112
WhompingWindows wrote: post #93

I go to a breakfast shop a lot, they lost around 1/2 of their staff permanently due to COVID, It majorly jostled the restaurant sector around here. I asked the owner, "Well, why'd they leave?". He claims "They're getting more on unemployment than if they worked." Well, why is that the case? Don't you provide them with enough to live on? If they're getting $500 a week from unemployment, that would mean you're paying p…

Folks raise that spectre when a living wage is mentioned. "So many service jobs lost!" I shake my head at that - folks who imagine themselves Free Market advocates, and here they are agreeing with Karl Marx that a capitalist system can't survive without a slave-wage class to prop it up. Paying everybody a living wage should be the minimum bar for any economy. If ours can't do it, we need a different one.

> and here they are agreeing with Karl Marx that a capitalist system can't survive without a slave-wage class to prop it up.

The employers aren't obligated to employ anyone. What do you think happens to the "slave-wage class" when the job disappears entirely?

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#175

Post by sokoloff »

refurb wrote: post #122
yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

The restaurant industry has known the solution for a long time but everyone wants to pretend it would be too difficult. Stop the tipping guilt trip placed on the public, raise your prices 20%, and pay your employees a livable wage. The public will still show up to eat in your restaurant.

The folks I’ve talked who were wait staff preferred tips. They made $10/hr ($80 per shift) but could pocket $200 in tips on a good night. Doubling their rate to $20/hr would be a pay cut.

I’m quite sure that less than 100% of cash tips are reported as income to the IRS and state revenue departments.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#176

Post by dionidium »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

The restaurant industry has known the solution for a long time but everyone wants to pretend it would be too difficult. Stop the tipping guilt trip placed on the public, raise your prices 20%, and pay your employees a livable wage. The public will still show up to eat in your restaurant.

Even if this is true, "the industry" is made up of individual actors who stand to lose a lot in the short term by moving first.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#177

Post by WalterBright »

ericbarrett wrote: post #73

Wages/insurance/tips are an ongoing concern of food service work, but I want to set that aside and talk about the other half of the article. Customer entitlement is out of control and anybody who works with the general public will tell you it’s gotten even worse since the pandemic—and it wasn’t trending in the right direction before. Flight attendants, park rangers, government clerks, the anecdotes are everywhere, in…

> Customer entitlement is out of control

It's not just customer entitlement. It's been a steadily rising thing throughout society for my whole life.

People are less and less willing to accept responsibility for their choices, and more and more it's always someone else's fault.

For example, a person who chose to go $300,000 into debt to go to Columbia film school, where the starting salary upon graduating is $30,000, claims to be a victim of the school.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#178

Post by WalterBright »

sethammons wrote: post #11

> rude customers, whose abuses restaurant staff are often forced to tolerate Service workers in general, I'd love it if more managers and companies would support front line workers in refusing service. The customer is not always right. People should not have to put up with literal abuse. The Alamo Drafthouse theater is famously known for kicking someone out who was using their cell phone and other customers appreciat…

On the other hand, for those who go out of their way to be nice to service workers, it's fun.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#179

Post by wusher »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

The restaurant industry has known the solution for a long time but everyone wants to pretend it would be too difficult. Stop the tipping guilt trip placed on the public, raise your prices 20%, and pay your employees a livable wage. The public will still show up to eat in your restaurant.

I think realistically it would come down to an increase of 30%. Most of the time, only a small amount of tips show up in taxes and now that it's part of the pay, the employer will also have to pay taxes on the increase.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#180

Post by handmodel »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #165
yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

The restaurant industry has known the solution for a long time but everyone wants to pretend it would be too difficult. Stop the tipping guilt trip placed on the public, raise your prices 20%, and pay your employees a livable wage. The public will still show up to eat in your restaurant.

Seems like an oversimplification to me. If the owners could simply raise prices by 20% and suffer no economic consequences, I have little doubt they would. Thus, I can only surmise that it is not as simple as that.

The article says about 5% of workers quit each month. If you raise pay by 20% - then maybe this goes down to 3%? I'm not sure - it obviously doesn't eliminate the problem entirely and either creates the problem of having to raise prices or get by with less staff.

I think people on HN may be forgetting the restaurant industry does not have the same margins as tech ... and close to no one working these jobs (on the employee side) is ever hoping to stay there for decades.

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