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

thehill.com

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

#141

Post by jzb »

holler wrote: post #38
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 barber shop I went to for years used to charge $35 for a haircut pre-pandemic, which with a ~$10 tip ($45) already felt real high. Now a haircut is $50 and I no longer go, opting instead to cut my own hair w help from my girlfriend. Maybe people don’t want $50 haircuts.

As a guy who gets a pretty standard, quick-and-easy cut, I get this. At the same time, $50 a month or whatever is pretty cheap compared to what I looked like after my partner tried her hand at cutting my hair at the start of the pandemic.

$50 or look like I've got the mange? I'll pay the $50!

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

#142

Post by rapnie »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #99
rapnie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Automation, automation, digital transformation, sure we can do it all. But in many cases it makes things suck a bit more, and life crappier overall. If I go to a restaurant a real person taking the order is part of the ambiance and expected service.…

I think it really is highly dependent on the individual. For your example with restaurants I have the absolute opposite preference. When I go to a restaurant I'm usually dining with friends so the social aspect is already covered - I don't want/need to make small chat with a waiter. Would be completely happy with an automated process there, for my mind that means more of my tip might go to the cook who is actually pr…

With the waiter it is more about someome friendly taking the order, giving some advice, noting down some special preferences. And before that everyone looking at their own menu card at ease (okay, having 6 tablets might be an improvement then).

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

#143

Post by ineedasername »

pengaru wrote: post #117
Ericson2314 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, then. We shouldn't assume a certain service or job is productive enough to exist because it used to be in the past. If barbershops need to go the way of horse liveries, that's OK.

> We shouldn't assume a certain service or job is productive enough to exist because it used to be in the past. If barbershops need to go the way of horse liveries, that's OK Automobiles replaced horses, did I miss the memo on something replacing hair growth?

did I miss the memo on something replacing hair growth

Men have been giving it a shot for a while, but unfortunately being half bald hasn't yet resulted in commensurate reductions in haircut prices compared to other men. It seems like there's a business opportunity there for a business model based on prices weighted by hair quantity.

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

#144

Post by lordnacho »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #85
maxlybbert wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 of shutting down that an additional $20-50 an hour will shutter you. Restaurants run on notoriously thin margins ( https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/profit-margins/ ). There's a reason resta…

Maybe we need buffet-style restaurants that serve nutritious perishable food without all the extra plating, waters, and other frivolities so people can bask in being served and pretend they are aristocracy. Everyone cooking is a massive inefficiency, and yet paying for conventional restaurants is also uneconomical. Eating shelf-stable food is cheaper than cooking for most people, but only until the bad health effects…

Yes and no. There's really not a whole lot of margin in the food. You get margin from buying a soda, beer, or wine in wholesale and selling it with barely any labour at a 5x markup.

My parents tried a buffet thing once, didn't work. You need a certain amount of scale that wasn't present in their area. I have seen some proper huge buffet places though, seems pretty good though rent is an issue.

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

#145

Post by Ericson2314 »

luckylion wrote: post #135
Ericson2314 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we need buffet-style restaurants that serve nutritious perishable food without all the extra plating, waters, and other frivolities so people can bask in being served and pretend they are aristocracy. Everyone cooking is a massive inefficiency, and yet paying for conventional restaurants is also uneconomical. Eating shelf-stable food is cheaper than cooking for most people, but only until the bad health effects…

Those aren't the only options. You can have small street-food vendors. The costs are much lower because there's no waiter etc. But it's more of a functional thing ("get food, go home fed"), not a pleasure thing where you sit around with friends or your partner and talk while someone serves you food.

Yeah that is good. Bums me out that we force them to use gas generators and not have running water mainly to avoid extractive rents, but that can be fixed. Mandating you bring your own container as I swear take-out contributes a huge portion of urban trash would also be a doable improvement.

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

#146

Post by beagle3 »

dudul wrote: post #94
tayo42 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States really needs to kill tipping culture off

Why? What would be different for the customer? The tip would just be rolled into the price of the service to amount to the same number, and quality of service would probably go down. Employees would also be taxed on the "tip" (which would now be included in their base salary). So what would really be the benefit? And I'm not trying to be dismissive at all. Coming from Europe I also thought initially that tipping was…

I’ll counter with a question: do you tip when you buy a new laptop? At the grocery store when buying milk? If so, how much? If not, why not?

As a customer, I want to know the real costs ahead of time.

As an employee (last received tips some 30 years ago, but still…) I would like to get paid for the work I did, not that 50% of my pay would be contingent on how authentic I can make my fake smile look on a stressful day.

I usually tip 20% wherever I am because I am too lazy to figure out the local culture and because I can afford to; but I seriously hate it.

Visiting Germany 15 years ago was a bliss in this respect - the expectation was to round up to the nearest euro, if any tip at all. But I understand that now, at least in Berlin, 10%-20% tip has become the norm.

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

#147

Post by n-exploit »

specialist wrote: post #112

Everyone talks about wages, no one talks about profit sharing. So much of our current drama would be mooted by sharing those record corporate profits with labor, by dialing back executive compensation, by returning to dividends vs buybacks (closing some more tax dodging schemes). -- Curious to see if Labor, agriculture, small businesses, and credit unions in the USA return to their roots: Cooperatives and collectivis…

There are many people in the co-op space, in the U.S. and abroad, working leverage technology to promote a more collectivist economy.

Co-op start-ups have a surprisingly low rate of failure, relative to traditional corporate structures.

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

#148

Post by Daishiman »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47
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…

The dirty open secret about development is that in highly developed countries with low inequality, human labor is just horrendously expensive, and since dining out has costs dominated by human labor, even relatively wealthy people dine out rarely.

Ask the Swiss or Danes. Cooks can have a living wage, but fancy meals are comparatively much more expensive than their equivalents in the US, given their lack access to underpaid immigrants for that kind of work.

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

#149

Post by asciimov »

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…

You must want to live in a frigid world bereft of human connection.

I recently went to a place that had no welcome/front end staff, just workers making a product (desserts) and a two kiosks at the front to take your order.

The kiosks interface was poorly made and confusing for a first time person. Worse, there was no sign telling me to step forward and order using the computer nor was there any sort of line to know who had already ordered and who were waiting to order. Over all it was a terrible experience and as such I don't plan on going back.

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

#150

Post by aninteger »

lordnacho wrote: post #111
BenjiWiebe wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are drawing unemployment benefits.

What are the rules in the US? When does it end?

Federal will end on Monday, Sept 6th, but certain states may have longer term benefits.
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