It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#41

Post by wazoox » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

n8cpdx wrote: post #4

It's surprising businesses haven't turned to automation. At the very least, most of a restaurant's and a coffee shop's labor can be replaced with automated ordering, having the customer collect food themselves when it's ready, and using robots to prepare more of the food. they can do lattes with art all by themselves now. A lot of these businesses just can't survive if they meet the wage demands of people who have be…

> most of a restaurant's and a coffee shop's labor can be replaced with automated ordering, having the customer collect food themselves when it's ready...

Which means "extracting free work from the customers", which is basically Marxism 101, "how to extract value from live work". My answer in such a place is to go straight out. I NEVER use the "automatic cashes", thank you very much.

> ... using robots to prepare more of the food. they can do lattes with art all by themselves now.

Robots are a sham, they're just a scarecrow to force workers into obedience. You'll replace more easily a lawyer with a robot than a toilet cleaner or a cook. Robots are fragile and horribly expensive. Good luck with that.

Just friggin' pay the people decent wages, for chrissake.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#42

Post by ren_engineer » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #2

It's amazing how business seems to understand the free market when it's selling to customers, but can't seem figure out the free market when it comes to hiring labor.

the government distorting the labor market with increased unemployment benefits isn't the free market

Especially when unemployment increased due to government mandated shutdowns

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#43

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #11

I want a news organisation to look at 10 jobs that cannot be filled and compare them to the broader market. As most of the unfillable jobs in my area seem to be manufacturing/outdoor labour that pay as much as retail (which seems a lot nicer) or jobs seeking experienced people at entry level pay.

The biggest joke about those manufacturing jobs is a lot of HR will filter you out if you don't have experience. Meanwhile no school trains or teaches you about how to operate a CNC milling machine. Technical colleges offer apprenticeship programs if you can find a place that will sponsor you. But then that circles back to not being able to find a company without experience.

The blue collar labor market is just a magnificent joke. I tried it for about 7 years of my life and they will literally only employ you if they somehow know you or you know someone else. If you're just a stranger, they won't even look at your resume. They don't even want to train on shit that in the 1960-1990's, they would take you if you weren't a total moron and could pass a drug test (if that even).

Modern HR has become a joke in this situation as well. Not only do they pretend like they add value to a company, but they filter out people who could easily be exploited for cheap simply because they don't have experience. Seriously, just hire a rando who seems vetted, make them do some bitch work and occasionally the main job duties. If they catch on, give them more, if not, get rid of them. It's like employers have become more risk averse than someone investing in CD's...

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#44

Post by FredPret » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

pope_meat wrote: post #24

toomuchtodo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with a bundle of Great Clips a friend manages for a franchisee. Can’t find staff, doesn’t believe staff are worth what the current effective minimum wage is. “Have you tried offering more?” “That’s too much for cosmetology work.” Getting slapped by the invisible hand of the market.

The owner class has gotten really used to having the upper hand in the negotiations, they're not coping well at all. And to that I say: welcome to the club.

The small biz owners here described here aren’t the Masters-of-the-Universe “owner class” types. They don’t even really own businesses, they own lower management jobs.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#45

Post by prepend » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

rebuilder wrote: post #25

n8cpdx wrote: post #4

It's surprising businesses haven't turned to automation. At the very least, most of a restaurant's and a coffee shop's labor can be replaced with automated ordering, having the customer collect food themselves when it's ready, and using robots to prepare more of the food. they can do lattes with art all by themselves now. A lot of these businesses just can't survive if they meet the wage demands of people who have be…

The problem with this is, if the barista gets automated, the customers buy better coffee machines and stop going to the cafe. An exaggeration, but you see my point perhaps. Unless your service is really purely about bang for buck, trying to automate it in ways that are visible to the customer can have downsides. McDonald’s could probably go full robotic. Starbucks? Not sure, maybe. It would be a little offputting. Yo…

This is not my experience. Watching Starbucks and my other local coffee places implement app/cashier less ordering it seems like more customers and more purchases.

Ordering on my phone while I’m the way is easier than talking with a human. And easier to add stuff on.

I’ve never considered buying an espresso machine and bypassing my local coffee place.

Similarly, I wish all fast food went cashierless. The cashier is the slowest and most error prone part of the process.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#46

Post by bluedino » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #23

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

Most restaurants operate on very slim margins. That's why many smaller financial institutions do not risk commercial loans on them unless they've been established for a while or it's guaranteed by an SBA loan which heavily minimizes the financials risk. Honestly I feel like most people would pay it. It seems to me that everybody just accepts you pay like 10x the price of what you could make something yourself as reas…

It does seem like we're in a good bubble. People eat out probably 10x more a month than they did 30 years ago. Now with delivery on top of that...

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#47

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

> b) have a business so close to the brink of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you.

This is the default state of businesses in competitive markets. If you could do with less then you could charge less, and one of your competitors will start doing that to take your customers, so you have to do the same.

Of course, the alternative is to pay more and then raise prices. Which you might not be able to do if the additional cost is imposed only on you, but when your competitors have to pay it too, you all raise prices without losing business to each other.

But the overall industry would still lose some business to customers not being able to afford its products, and some of the suppliers still go out of business.

Unless the labor costs increase generally instead of only for that industry. Because then your customers can afford the higher prices. If labor becomes a higher percentage of operating costs overall, they may even be able to afford more than before. This is why a UBI is good for businesses -- customers have more money in their pockets.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#48

Post by jdavis703 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

There are a lot of businesses on the brink. My regular Italian spot went out of business in the depths of the pandemic. They re-capitalized and opened again but with higher prices. Their clientele is upper middle class (i.e. relatively price insensitive). But they still wrote a long letter explaining why prices increased (more benefits, more salary) and asking that people support their increased overhead by becoming regular patrons. I think operators are really scared people will judge them on value if the price goes up.

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#49

Post by hanniabu » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

mananaysiempre wrote: post #34

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

Prices can be very, very sticky? In my city it appears (to my uninvolved eye) that several levels of floor space sublessors need to run out of lessees by raising prices in order to pay (possibly their debt to) the higher levels, with a couple months’ latency for each, until retail can reasonably exist again.

If they start raising prices then CPI will start reflecting true inflation, and we can't be having that!

Re: It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage

#50

Post by angelzen » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

atrus wrote: post #12

Painfully obvious too. My little local Mexcian place will be closing down because of a lack of cooks. Talking to the owner, he was complaining about government benefits, and how they all want $20 an hour. I don't understand it, that you'd either a) be willing to drive your business into the ground serving a limited menu because you won't hire a couple cooks at $20 an hour, or b) have a business so close to the brink…

The owner won't hire a couple of cooks at $20 an hour because he won't be able to pay off his mortgages anymore. The banker sits behind all this and collects his fat percentage cut while laughing at the plebs fighting with each other over scraps.

We have a 3 tier system: minimum wage workers condemned to a perpetual state of precarity, middle class professional and small business types that toil away paying hefty mortgages one medical emergency from bankruptcy and capital owners that lend around money at extortionate rates and run to the nanny state to print money and save their skin whenever their bets go sour. Guess which strata gets most of the flak. Tip: it's not those at the top.