Restaurant workers quit at record rate • Hacker News Board

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#901

Post by valarauko » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

postingawayonhn wrote: post #611

valarauko wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine Q: is $25 a lot for a burger in a restaurant (including tax, like in Australia)? I ask because I see burgers in mid range restaurants for $14-$20 here in NYC, and then there's the 8.825% tax. 25 AUD is ~ $18 USD, which seems about right.

It depends on the establishment. Grilld is a popular mid-range burger chain and their burgers range from AUD $9 to $16.90 (USD $6.60 to $12.40). All advertised retail prices in Australia include 10% GST (good and services tax). At a more formal restaurant you will likely find a AUD $25 burger but that's about the top end for burger prices.

I was thinking more along the lines of a non-chain establishment like a restaurant, since that's the impression I got from the ancestor comment - they're referring to table service. A burger chain like Shakeshack has burgers in the range of $6-11, pre-tax.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#902

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #821

ozim wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it is not one other person's desire. There is bunch of restaurants/joints offering me to buy a burger or buy some food with them. Yes it is more expensive than cooking myself. But no one is making them to offer those. I am not going around making people to bring me food. Making food for one or two people is not that hard work as I mostly do it for myself or my GF or she is cooking. Making food for hundreds of pe…

What I meant was essentially that restaurants are the most prime example of economic servitude, cooking a meal for somebody else who has enough money to pay for it.

You keep describing a job as 'economic servitude'.

Do you think the waiter is then exploiting the farmer when the waiter uses that money they got waiting tables to buy food for themselves? The farmer is 'growing food for someone else who has enough money to pay for it'

If you find this economic servitude, then you basically are saying that anyone who participates in the economy is being exploited.

I guess in a sense we are all servants to our need for food and shelter, and the fact that we need to do things that we might not want to do in order to cloth and shelter ourselves. Not sure why obtaining food and shelter by trading your labor for goods is somehow a worse situation that having to grow and make all your own food and build and maintain your own house.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#903

Post by ska » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #883

ska wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you learn to cook you won't eat at anything less than the most expensive. This isn't really true. Restaurants exist to fill a bunch of different needs; experience, novelty, convenience etc. And expense isn't a particularly good predictor of quality. I do agree that once you can cook well you're much less likely to be happy at an overpriced generic version of something... which is right where fast casual and bi…

It is at least half true though. Once you can cook well you learn that cheap is typically bad food. Expensive food can be good or bad, the good is worth it for those other reasons you state.

> Once you can cook well you learn that cheap is typically bad food.

Not really. I had a great tacos the other day from a food truck, and great Ethiopian dinner on the weekend. Both cheap and not something I could reproduce easily or at all.

On the other hand, what you say usually applies to the ragu at a fast-casual.

So it depends.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#904

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #359

bluGill wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spouses who needed to get out of the house while their other half was at work. They loved going to work with the same friends every day, chatting while cleaning up after the lunch shift... There was enough work to not be bored. There are a lot of people who like having a job, but don't really need the money. Those that need the money move up to management if they can.

Many of those spouses in fact needed money.

Exactly. There are all kinds of better social outlets if you don’t need money; book clubs, knitting groups, and game nights exist precisely to fill that need. The idea that you’d go work at McDonald’s for funsies rather than out of economic necessity just doesn’t pass the sniff test.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#905

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #759

throwawayboise wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's and similar jobs used to be an entry level job for teens and college students. When I was 16 I was happy to work there for minimum wage ($3.35/hr at the time). Nobody other than the mangers did it to support a family. It was never understood to be that kind of job. I don't know how we got to the point where a no-skills-required job that anyone with a pulse can learn to do in a few hours suddenly became req…

The minimum wage was set to $3.35/hr in 1981, a time when 22.2% of Americans were employed in manufacturing vs. 10% today. There were many alternatives to working at McDonalds that stopped existing in the US over the last 40 years. The ultimate answer to what Americans would do instead of manufacturing turned out to be restaurant and retail work.

Also, consider the relative increase in housing, education, and medical care over that period of time. The inflation adjusted median home was about $178,000 in 1981, It’s $314,000 now.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#906

Post by mirkules » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

LadyCailin wrote: post #607

mirkules wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Citation needed. I can find plenty of studies that show it doesn’t. [0] Raising wages at the bottom doesn’t increase prices across the board, and so this benefits folks at the lower end more than it hurts. [0]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41445397

From the Congressional Budget Office:

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/56975-Minimum-Wage....

The second point, in the first paragraph:

> Higher prices for goods and services—stemming from the higher wages of workers paid at or near the minimum wage, such as those providing long-term health care—would contribute to increases in federal spending.

The whole thing is an interesting read, actually

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#907

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

throwaway210222 wrote: post #816

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…

> Its not just about wages … insuring everyone has cheap or free healthcare. That is exactly the same as raising wages. Outside the USA (or at least HN), its common for companies to negotiate remuneration on the total cost to company [1]. This includes wages, taxes (e.g. training taxes), pension, health-care, phone, etc, etc. Its weird that commentators here somehow think that companies don't incur these freebies you…

The problem I have with that is getting the actual number. Employers aren’t sharing that and I don’t know how much I actually cost my employer per year. I can guess by summing my salary, PTO, healthcare, taxes, etc. but that’s probably grossly inaccurate. Is also Very hard to comparison shop companies benefits packages when many are very reticent to hand out the official rate and coverage documents including their contributions.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#908

Post by banannaise » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #807

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. That would mean the people running those businesses were in need of psychological help, it is pretty much crazy to close your business because you refuse to raise wages. I propose a counter explanation - your business has a very tight margin - if you raise wages you cannot afford to continue in business unless yo…

> That would mean the people running those businesses were in need of psychological help

There are some small business owners very clearly in need of psychological help, so this tracks.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#909

Post by postingawayonhn » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

valarauko wrote: post #901

postingawayonhn wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the establishment. Grilld is a popular mid-range burger chain and their burgers range from AUD $9 to $16.90 (USD $6.60 to $12.40). All advertised retail prices in Australia include 10% GST (good and services tax). At a more formal restaurant you will likely find a AUD $25 burger but that's about the top end for burger prices.

I was thinking more along the lines of a non-chain establishment like a restaurant, since that's the impression I got from the ancestor comment - they're referring to table service. A burger chain like Shakeshack has burgers in the range of $6-11, pre-tax.

Grilld does do a limited table service. You order at a counter (or on your phone) but orders will be bought to your table. The wait staff will check up on you but if you don't want that there's a stick on each table that you flip over.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#910

Post by fridif » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

rendall wrote: post #778

fridif wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No problem, I'm used to the downvoting :)

I think it is important to distinguish a couple of things.

If there are businesses out there, like maybe McDonalds or Walmart, who are easily able to pay $20 per hour instead of $7.50, and are choosing not to do so because of a desire for even larger profits, then yes, this is evidence of a mild seller's market for labor and also a lack of market savvy on behalf of McDonalds/Walmart.

If those corps are already offering $20 an hour and benefits and still people are not showing up to work, then it is a roaring seller's market for labor, and must in theory be caused by some other external source that is causing laborers to feel $20 is too low. Where are they going, what are they doing? Are they taking the opportunity to pursue a degree? Are they staying at home playing video games? Have they all found a job making $42 an hour talking on the phone at home? We would need the data to answer these questions.

But in the exact case of restaurants, I genuinely think most of them do not have the money. I haven't ever in my life met a restaurant owner who has a stable financial situation with a paid off mortgage, nice car, and 3 kids put through college already having become cardiologists or something like that. But I've met a lot of other people who have done all that. And I've met a lot of restaurant owners too.

I think that all they can afford is $7.50-$12.50 an hour in most cases, with no benefits. And now that city centers have seen a good portion of their residents with lots of disposable income move away, I suspect that most restaurants have lost the financial base that used to support them.

I saw a video of a restaurant owner during the pandemic in NYC who cut his staff from 45 to 3 and was just barely able to pull it together and survive. Was he paying his people more than $15 an hour? Don't know.