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Restaurant workers quit at record rate

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Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#591
post #2

> That's because for many, leaving food service had a lot to do also with its high-stress culture: exhausting work, unreliable hours, no benefits and so many rude customers. I didn't realize that rude customers was that widespread.

Have you ever worked restaurant or food service? I worked at McDonalds a few years after high school and it was the most demoralizing, depressing, and abusive job I've worked. Bussing tables wasn't much better in comparison either. But at least when bussing tables people didn't talk to you like you were human waste. I had people actually tell me that I was stupid, I had someone throw an ice cream at me because they w…

[deleted]

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Am I the only person who thinks restaurant prices are pretty low? I'm sure they could go up quite a bit. Lunch out costs me maybe £15. Surely that could be £20 or so?

20 GBP for lunch? Even at 10 USD I'll buy lunch only once in two weeks. A 20 USD lunch is a rare treat for special occasions only.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#594
post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pandemic unemployment has already ended in a bunch of states. If it's the problem, we would be seeing those states rebound.

That’s exactly what’s happening. The States that ended the extend benefits have lower unemployment rates. Ex: https://apnews.com/article/business-health-alabama-coronavir...

> The States that ended the extend benefits have lower unemployment rates.

Your “example” is of a state that had a lower unemployment than the national average before ending extended unemployment benefits seeing not significantly different than the national rate of decline in unemployment in the brief period since cutting extended benefits, not an example of more rapid drop after cutting benefits.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about the CH students?

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Naive question: why not raise prices?

Because if everyone raises their prices, the wage increase then effectively makes no difference.

If everyone raises wages, they have to raise prices. For the restaurant, this means they have to charge more for the same service, and they have to pay more for their supply chain (because they also increased their prices).

For the worker, that means they will pay more for things and services they need/want, because every other business will suffer from the same issues and be forced to raise their prices.

All this to say, the worker's purchasing power decreases if everyone raises wages, and that is the definition of inflation.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#597
post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pandemic unemployment has already ended in a bunch of states. If it's the problem, we would be seeing those states rebound.

That’s exactly what’s happening. The States that ended the extend benefits have lower unemployment rates. Ex: https://apnews.com/article/business-health-alabama-coronavir...

Of course you have lower rates of people collecting unemployment when you end unemployment extensions. You can lower it to 0% by killing the program altogether.

You'd be better looking at rates of employment.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Naive question: why not raise prices?

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Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#599

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.

> I'm skeptical that a business would choose to go out of business rather that give raises.

I don't think that you've met a lot of small business, owners, then.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#600
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew someone who was mad at their partner because their partner was a software engineer and "didn't work as hard as they do" at a lower skill job, and yet made a lot more money. I'm not sure where this idea comes from that hard work is as valuable/more valuable than skilled work. But it seems to be a pervasive idea.

I suspect it comes from the “truism” that hard work pays off. It’s understandably frustrating for people when they inevitably realize it’s not as true as we were led to believe. A person can work like a dog their entire life and still be poor.

Skilled work means you're less replaceable. I've met a lot of assholes in IT who would have been fired if it wasn't for their contribution to the company.
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