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Restaurant workers quit at record rate

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Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#301

Post by k33n »

luffapi wrote: post #99
k33n wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hilarious that this perfectly rational and fact based remark is downvoted. This place has gone full blue anon.

It’s neither rational nor fact based. The government isn’t “paying people to sit at home” it’s providing the bare semblance of a social safety net (kind of, not really) in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic. Hopefully these changes become permanent because automation continues to decrease the need for workers and wealth inequality continues to pressure the working class at historically high levels.

It's entirely rational and fact based, but it does threaten the worldview of the people who parrot everything they hear in mainstream media. Americans will never let "the new normal" be permanent, and only the grossly uninformed hope otherwise.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#302

Post by bena »

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…

Be aware that you can't entirely trust his perception of the situation. He has a vested interest in under-paying his workforce.

He is going to doom and gloom any situation that results in him potentially losing money. And him losing out on profit to pay his staff probably doesn't enter his mind. If he made $X of profit last year, he wants to make $X+ this year. So he figures if he has to pay people Y more, he will have to charge Y more so he can still profit what he wants to.

To your opinion on what he should do regarding "extra" employees, I'm going to refer you to the book, Slack. While those employees are technically standing around being extra, they're needed to accommodate the bursts of activity that happens in a restaurant. Restaurants aren't busy all day long, they're busy in spurts. When you need people, you need them now.

And I think that may a major issue. The tipped minimum wage makes things feel like they're running efficiently, when it's really just shifting the money around in a way that is not optimal for the customer and causes them to overpay.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#303

Post by SonicScrub »

lrdswrk00 wrote: post #166

Covid has made me question eating out at all. It’s trivial to cook something that’s better tasting and healthier than fast food, most cafes. With all the practice in the last year, it’s not hard to come close to my favorite upscale restaurants for 1/4 of the price. I don’t need to find a recipe, I can “just cook” now. Eating out seems like an antiquated division of labor given how streamlined procurement (grocery del…

Agreed. Especially when a big part of the value proposition of a restaurant, the time savings, are negated when I can do my cooking while simultaneously in a meeting. Plus I can be in my underwear the whole time!

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#304

Post by petra »

janitor61 wrote: post #142

Why not bring back the Automat to take the increasingly-rude public out of the equation?

Efficient technologies, some new ones also, exist.

Some say people pay for the experience, for being served when going to a restaurant.

It would be interesting to see if that's true, or if highly automated restaurants with the right experience and price will become a hit.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#305

Post by xanaxagoras »

minikites wrote: post #280
posguy wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restaurants by and large are not high revenue businesses. Most small grocers generate more revenue in 1 to 2 months than a restaurant will generate in a year. It seems like restaurant owners in the US turn over often, varying from every few months to 3 years on the outside. Seems like a really stressful industry that can have good margins, but maintaining profitability is hard and consumers are quite fickle.

How is this a justification for paying workers less than a livable wage?

The only justification required is their willingness to accept it.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#306

Post by LunaSea »

jokoon wrote: post #263

I live in france, and I recently went to some presentation by some "restauration job industry" school director, who tried to encourage us to apply. I was open to other jobs and I discovered that it was mostly about working in a restaurant after arriving at the presentation. It's summer, france is a destination for tourism and there is a big shortage of workers. Post covid, people want to go out and have a good time.…

> the culture of food is amazing

It really isn't. France has lots of delicious recipes but the food that gets actually produced in the average restaurant in France is terrible.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#307

Post by munificent »

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.

> If the owners could simply raise prices by 20% and suffer no economic consequences, I have little doubt they would.

If all the restaurants did at the same time, they could. But if only some do, then the restaurants that underpay their workers will have lower prices and outcompete them out of business.

You can look at this an yet another example of the core problem where consumers don't have visibility into the externalities of the purchasing choices. When picking a restaurant, you see the food prices, but you don't see that one restaurant is more expensive because it treats its workers better. That's an encapsulated abstraction. So we choose based on price, which inadvertently incentivizes restaurants to treat employees like crap.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#308

Post by kube-system »

gruez wrote: post #192
kube-system wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are extreme outliers. The 90th percentile wage for waiters (excluding fast-food!) is $20.46/hr. The 75th percentile is $14.73 https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes353031.htm The vast majority of waiters would love to make a $20 wage.

Does the BLS data account for under-reporting of cash-based tips? If I really was making $100k a year because of tips, I would be really tempted to not give 30% (marginal rate) to uncle sam.

Not sure, but something like 80+% of restaurant transactions are electronic these days, and undoubtably even higher in expensive restaurants where the unbanked can't afford to eat. People pay cash in diners and fast food. Fancy restaurants are full of people paying with company credit cards or collecting points on their chase sapphire or whatnot.

Even if everyone at 4-dollar-sign restaurants was making 6 digits, that's still a small minority of restaurants.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#309

Post by [deleted] »

oramit wrote: post #135
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…

I think there has been a general rise in selfish behavior now that pandemic restrictions are being lifted. You have people who never took the pandemic seriously and now that things are back open, but are not the same, they are lashing out. That's one part of this. I also think you have another camp, which I'll admit to being a member of. I did everything I was supposed to do. I stayed at home, used masks everywhere,…

[deleted]

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#310

Post by bluGill »

Buttons840 wrote: post #256
kop316 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be the case for some....but that is not the case for all. For one ancedote, my father in-law runs a restaurant with my aunt in-law (his sister). They are the only workers, and split the profits evenly. They are in the midwest (low taxes), and own the restaurant's property/building. They were able to completely shut down during COVID and restart back up, and have survived several economic downturns. They are…

I'm sure things are more complicated than you describe, but it seems like they fear increasing prices will lead to closing, and to avoid this they're... just going to close?

There is a certain amount of investment needed to keep going. If you are going to close the restaurant next year you can keep the current tables, otherwise replace them before they get too worn out. Or maybe it is the fry machine at the end of life, replace it for $50,000. If the restaurant continues for a few more years it is worth it, to fix/replace things, but if the restaurant is doomed it is better to cut your loses.

Even in the best of times restaurants are the hardest business to run successfully. These are not the best of times, and (as always) it isn't clear what the future will hold.

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