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Restaurant workers quit at record rate

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Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#521

Post by jandrewrogers »

tolbish wrote: post #490
jandrewrogers wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have several good friends that work in this business in Seattle, where several restauranteurs tried the "no tipping" model. Anecdotally, in a popular quintessentially Seattle restaurant, a good front-of-house person may net around $40/hr after tips, some more and some less. I don't have a lot of sample data for the "no tipping" restaurants, but my general impression is that it was on the order of a 10% reduction in…

One would think a sign out front that said "Now hiring: Wait staff, starting pay @ $40/hr (or even $30/hr)" would have no trouble finding and retaining talent, even in big cities like Seattle. I don't think I've ever seen a sign advertising anything near that for restaurants.

These are skilled restaurant jobs, they don't advertise with signs. Same reason there isn't a "help wanted" sign for my job. It is a social market. There were shortages already before COVID in Seattle, but now the shortages are extreme. Restaurants are reducing opening hours and days.

I have friends working these jobs. The consistent pattern is that they are only working the minimum number of shifts required to pay their bills, and they live pretty cheaply. You can't staff the restaurants when all of your employees only want to work 1-2 days a week. They could easily work more hours, and did before COVID, but are choosing not to now. And because restaurant work is extremely flexible and available on-demand, it makes their life flexible.

Many people have adapted their lifestyles to having less money and not working, especially with the generous unemployment benefits. Restaurant workers I know fall into that camp. My SO was receiving $75k/year on unemployment during COVID and turned down jobs paying $125k+ because they discovered the unemployment benefit was sufficient for a lifestyle of doing nothing that they were happy with. Not likely to take a job anytime soon either.

As a tangential observation, while I know many people in this position, none of them is doing much with their newfound free time. Just kind of coasting.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#522

Post by paxys »

monkeydust wrote: post #250

Maybe this will lead to adoption of automation in kitchen and front of house? There are a number of startups and concepts in this space and this might be the catalyst for meaningful adoption. Not sure I find it appealing as a guest.

Money isn't a barrier to automation, technology is. The whole "if we raise minimum wage the workers will be replaced by robots" argument is bogus. The workers are being replaced regardless of what their wage is, as and when the technology is ready.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#523

Post by WalterBright »

echelon wrote: post #476
WalterBright wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These were Masters degree students, not 17 year olds. They had SIX years to type this into google: Starting salary for film degree I would think an educated student would know how to use google? But I bet they actually did know this, and went ahead anyway, and now just want to blame others.

It's taking longer than I would have thought for this meme to soak in for the general public. I knew this back in college, but that was a bit ago... There isn't a lot of room at the top in film (at least until the creator economy table flips Hollywood). Likewise, there aren't many paid positions for historians, philosophy professors, etc. Kids need to understand that their top priority should be to understand the sha…

In my time at Caltech, all the AY students knew that the job prospects were nil. They did double majors, one for fun, one for money.

This was long before Google.

The starting salaries for each major were common knowledge, too.

I don't buy that film students did not know this until after graduation.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#524

Post by rdtwo »

bluGill wrote: post #318
the-dude wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until there is only Walmart and Amazon left.

It isn't hard to start a new business. There are a ton off niches that Walmart and Amazon don't server well. Find one and serve it, then use profits to expand into the much larger (though lower margin!) areas that Walmart or Amazon serve. Good luck - it is not easy to run a business.

lol it’s not hard to start in tech with no regulation no capital or overhead. Real businesses are hard to start and live and die by the cost of financing

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#525

Post by wonderwonder »

gruez wrote: post #423
wonderwonder wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Issue is that the only reason this slave wage class exists in food services is because of a coordinated lobbying campaign to influence politicians to keep it like that. Most people in this thread would be pretty upset if all tech companies got together tomorrow and decided to artificially cap salaries and bought politicians to enforce it.

>Most people in this thread would be pretty upset if all tech companies got together tomorrow and decided to artificially cap salaries and bought politicians to enforce it. Are you claiming that wages in the restaurant industry are kept artificially low because of companies artificially capping salaries, and that politicians are enforcing it? If so, is there a source for this? AFAIK the pay is bad purely because of m…

Yes: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

Federal minimum wage is $7.25 for tipped employees its $2.13

Lobbying groups contribute to keeping wages low: https://www.politicalresearch.org/2015/04/14/chain-restauran...

Herman Cain former presidential candidate and CEO of godfather's pizza specifically built his lobbying career on this.

Not claiming it, its a fact.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#526

Post by luffapi »

gruez wrote: post #205
luffapi wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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. That might be the intent, but that's irrelevant to the actual distortionary effects that it causes on the job market that gp is talking about.

If it was fact based they would have provided those facts. They didn’t. It’s also highly irrational to suggest the government is paying people to sit at home, since they are not.

The comment was correctly flagged dead for being flamebait.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#527

Post by rdtwo »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #430
bluGill wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you learn to cook you won't eat at anything less than the most expensive. It is really hard to enjoy a meal when you are thinking "I could have done this better myself at less cost". Chains and fast food just don't provide the quality I demand for the most part, and even the independents are hit and miss.

In this case you're trading out your effort for the cash. I'm happy to trade my money, which I earn much more efficiently at my job than I can save by cooking, for the food so I don't have to put in effort and can enjoy my evening out with friends. I'm also more than happy to pay a couple of dollar premium to eat fast food than try to recreate it on my own while I'm running to work.

It’s not as great a trade off as it might seem you are pushing the externalities of bad diet on to later in life

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#528

Post by PragmaticPulp »

himinlomax wrote: post #241
moate wrote: post #115

Good. Here's my story from the industry I was a part of for a better part of a decade: One time while I was a line cook, I was cleaning a meat slicer and sliced 3/4ths of the way through the tip of my thumb (just the meaty part at the end, not bone or anything). I realized I had 2 options: Leave work, go to the ER, miss my shift/pay, and incur a bunch of medical debt I could barely afford OR; leave work, go to the CV…

This is the most incredible thing about the US. Employers should be responsible for workplace safety and pay for it.

> Employers should be responsible for workplace safety and pay for it.

In the US, employers are responsible for workplace safety and there are serious repercussions for violations like this. Some small businesses rely on employees being too fearful to report incidents, but that’s not unique to the US.

Worker’s compensation would have covered the injury mentioned above, and any employer interfering with that would face serious consequences up to and including loss of business license and closure of the restaurant.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#529

Post by WalterBright »

imtringued wrote: post #421
WalterBright wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

That person clearly is not a victim of the school, rather that person is the victim of a predatory loan. Just think about it. A degree doesn't have to cost $300000 but the bank financed it anyway, with the clear intention of working that person down to their bones. Why would a bank let someone take a debt that takes 10 years of work to repay? Because they want to force that person to work for 10 years. If the law wer…

> victim

This is what I am talking about with the entitlement society - zero responsibility assigned to the person for their poor decisions.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#530

Post by itsoktocry »

browningstreet wrote: post #498

I think some businesses are going out of businesses because they stubbornly refuse to raise their wages. In the vacation community where I live, there are two grocery/delis about a mile apart from each other. One is at a marina, the other is at a beach. They have almost the same business offering. Traditionally, both are fully mobbed during the sunny seasons. Two weeks ago, I visited the one I usually go to -- at the…

>I think some businesses are going out of businesses because they stubbornly refuse to raise their wages

I'm skeptical that a business would choose to go out of business rather that give raises. Have you considered that margins are tighter than you think? I know small businesses like that.

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