Restaurant workers quit at record rate • Hacker News Board

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#771

Post by flippertheD » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:33 AM UTC

lumost wrote: post #736

flippertheD wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, all businesses run operations dif and have dif margins, so let's not forget that. I run a recruiting company. From our data a few things have popped up. First, people want higher wages in the lower wage industries. They are asking for $15-20 per hour. Second, lot of these people don't want to go back to the same labor jobs they had - they want to do something different. the problem with this is that they want t…

Why shouldn't a teenager make 20 an hour? At 16 your looking down the road at 2 very expensive options. 1) Go to college and earn a degree for 120-240k dollars 2) Start paying rent, owning your own car, healthcare, food, and leisure activities. Both of these are expensive directions to take. It used to be that someone could pay for school with a summer job, why shouldn't it be now? It doesn't appear the education cha…

Have you ever employed a teenager? They lack life exp. They lack confidence. They really don't know much at all about anything on a professional level. Sometimes you get good ones, but the majority are not sticking around for long or are doing a poor job. Your customers wont return with bad experiences and low quality. College is a scam for most. Put these young kids in debt for most of their life to earn a degree for which they are not even into. Better off going to trade school. And by the way, the lack of labor in skilled trades is astounding right now. Making $20/hr is better than $12/hr, but it's not really going to make a big dent in your college debt.

edit: talk to any large employer and ask them about employing the younger generation. All of them will say they have no work ethic and sit on their phones the whole time. You know what else, they think they should be paid $100k/hr and be millionaires...so try managing a bunch of people with that attitude and try not to go crazy. These companies are now reaching out to the older crowd for which they used to discriminate against because the young people suck.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#772

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:40 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #745

selimthegrim wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the CH students?

You mean Chemistry? They commanded the best offers at the time.

That was emphatically not true when I graduated (2009)

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#773

Post by square_usual » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:48 AM UTC

acituan wrote: post #697

Aloha wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just wages - like alot of what we can do is making shitty jobs less miserable, ensuring everyone gets some amount of vacation and sick time, insuring everyone has cheap or free healthcare access, ensuring everyone has relatively fixed schedule - eliminate punitive workplace policies, on stuff like attendance and other shit that makes being there miserable. Like, you can do a hell of alot to reduce peoples da…

All of those reasons are valid, but not unique to hospitality industry. I think we might be backgrounding one particular reason too much: customers are a headache. One of the subheadings of the article is "They're just yelling the entire time". I find it interesting that this hasn't been discussed as much, maybe because we are culpable? Maybe at one point of time we were that high maintenance customer? Maybe there is…

Is that a cultural thing? I'm always surprised when I see American service workers complain about abusive customers, because in my region in South India I've very very rarely seen anyone abuse their servers. A few complaints, maybe, but no yelling or pressure. IME the class divide in India is wider, so it makes me even more confused.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#774

Post by intended » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:49 AM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #582

itsoktocry wrote: post #530

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?

Some people will, many will find other ways to optimize (lower inventory, lower wastage), or deal with smaller margins.

Others will change their product offerings to maintain margins.

And some will misjudge the situation, or were too close to the bone to survive in this environment and fold.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#775

Post by intended » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:52 AM UTC

pcmoney wrote: post #713

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…

So the owner who has operated a cut throat, extremely demanding, razor thin margin for years folds because they don’t understand basic labor supply and demand? Keep in mind this person has mostly likely done in depth analysis on how to make their most popular item at the same quality but for 2% less of some expensive ingredient. I know one phenomenal restaurant owner who spent an entire year to get the cost of their…

This is a loaded question, you presuppose that people are operating on demanding, tight, and competitive margins for years.

Not everyone is, and yes - many of them will fold because their viability was predicated on an unfeasible wage.

Sometimes an ecosystem is well past its expiry date and it reduces to a less vibrant interplay of species.

It’s tragic, but if it took one single thing to destroy it, then it is safe to presume that there were huge issues eroding its underlying harmony.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#776

Post by bpodgursky » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:53 AM UTC

jackson1442 wrote: post #601

josephcsible wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that businesses stubbornly refuse to raise wages - it's that they can't afford to. A lot of local small businesses were barely staying afloat even before March 2020.

If a business can’t afford to pay its employees enough make rent and buy groceries, perhaps it shouldn’t be a business?

Closing down grocery stores will make it a tad harder for the (now unemployed) workers to buy groceries.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#777

Post by kortilla » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:55 AM UTC

fergie wrote: post #768

grapehut wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, but would you also rather people unemployed than working for less than a living wage as well?

The answer is yes. In a functioning modern capitalist economy, workers must be able to choose if and where they work. A good way to think about this is to frame the question on yourself: should I be forced to work for less than a living wage? Should the state subsidise my employer in order for her to underpay me?

> workers must be able to choose if and where they work.

Then why do you want to take that away from them?

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#778

Post by rendall » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:57 AM UTC

fridif wrote: post #730

rendall wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One would expect in that case lots of laborers with wages at the minimum, and many more looking for work. What we're seeing in the description is not that.

I reckon the jobs are not on offer because the restaurants only want to pay a small amount (they have razor thin margins and an employee costs more than just salary [workers comp, insurance, equipment, liability etc]). Previously people accepted the small amount, but now they aren't because they're (currently still) being paid to stay home in most cases.

I do agree with you that a minimum wage potentially has unintended negative consequences for those looking to work but do not have valuable skills to offer. An employer may make do without rather than hire a day laborer for instance at an expensive rate. We might disagree on whether negative consequences are inevitable.

By your assessment, though, it seems the seller's market is not caused by the minimum wage, but by COVID relief packages?

Also, I'm sorry you're getting downvoted. I only downvote if someone goes against community guidelines, and not if I simply disagree with them

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#779

Post by seattle_spring » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:57 AM UTC

lumost wrote: post #736

flippertheD wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, all businesses run operations dif and have dif margins, so let's not forget that. I run a recruiting company. From our data a few things have popped up. First, people want higher wages in the lower wage industries. They are asking for $15-20 per hour. Second, lot of these people don't want to go back to the same labor jobs they had - they want to do something different. the problem with this is that they want t…

Why shouldn't a teenager make 20 an hour? At 16 your looking down the road at 2 very expensive options. 1) Go to college and earn a degree for 120-240k dollars 2) Start paying rent, owning your own car, healthcare, food, and leisure activities. Both of these are expensive directions to take. It used to be that someone could pay for school with a summer job, why shouldn't it be now? It doesn't appear the education cha…

Or they could go to a reasonably priced college for $40k or less and get just as good of a job. $120k is a jokingly high amount of tuition.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#780

Post by adrianN » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 5:57 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #574

itsoktocry wrote: post #530

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?

I spend maybe 40€ per week on food, not just lunch. 20 pounds for a single meal seems a bit expensive to me.