Its not a shortage of workers, it's a shortage of underpayable workers.
Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
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Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
The structural issue is that Covid allowed for the activation energy for people to find better jobs. And possibly cut down on supply of people willing to work hotel cleaning jobs for low pay. It is probably among the least desirable work. Volatile hours, busiest times are weekends and holidays, literally cleaning up anything from bodily fluids to garbage and dealing with smells. No one outside of large unionized hote…
Why has the workforce participation rate cratered? If people simply changed to a better job, that figure would hold steady. Instead it shows us that millions of Americans decided to stop looking for work.
Some portion retired. https://wapo.st/3VgOxf8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2022/03/03/are-boom...
Another portion is no longer able to work those jobs (especially service sector jobs where one is required to show up for a shift or get fired). New data shows long Covid is keeping as many as 4 million people out of work - https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-data-shows-long-covid...
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
> The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job was little changed at 5.6 million in November and remains above its February 2020 level of 5.0 million. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job.
> Among those not in the labor force who wanted a job, the number of persons marginally attached to the labor force held at 1.5 million in November. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but had not looked for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. The number of discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed that no jobs were available for them, was 405,000 in November, little changed from the previous month. (See Summary table A.)
Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#33> It's not for lack of trying. Hotels have raised hourly wages by 25% since early 2020, and employers are offering greater flexibility in scheduling. Still, workers are nowhere to be seen. 25% of minimum wage isn't much.
Particularly as a lot of that is just keeping up with inflation.
Many industries seem to prefer going bankrupt than pay their lowest level employees well.
Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not understand why a change from 63% to 62% is a sufficiently big deal to be able to claim “millions of Americans decided to stop looking for work”, especially when we know a greater and greater proportion of the population is elderly who cannot work.
I would really love to see these statistics broken down by industry, salary band, age, etc.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
Table A on page 5 has one breakdown. Table B on page 6 has employment by industry.
Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#35I wonder where everyone has gone. The lazy answer is that companies aren't paying enough. But how is it better to sit at home making $0 than working and having an income? How do they afford rent or electricity or pay for car insurance? The workforce participation rate is still well below pre-pandemic levels. Millions of people just up and left the workforce. It's not as if they are looking for work at the right wage,…
People had ~3 years to find new jobs outside of hospitality after the industry basically shut down. No one is sitting at home, they found new jobs. There's also the toll COVID took on the workforce, and COVID-related disabilities.
This is the most reasonable explanation. I even know a couple people whose jobs were affected by Covid took the time (and government support) to do a career change.
It happened with the airlines too. When you're without a job for more than a year, people move onto new companies, new careers or just retire early.
Singapore airlines continued to pay their pilots to not fly during Covid, knowing it would be tough as hell to restaff once they opened up. Apparently they rotated them through what little flights were available (cargo predominated) to maintain their skills. Once flights were restarted, they had no problem with staff shortages.
Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#36Its not a shortage of workers, it's a shortage of underpayable workers.
> Hotels have raised hourly wages by 25% since early 2020, and employers are offering greater flexibility in scheduling. Still, workers are nowhere to be seen.
I dunno, my pay sure hasn't gone up by 25% in the past 2 years.
Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#37> It's not for lack of trying. Hotels have raised hourly wages by 25% since early 2020, and employers are offering greater flexibility in scheduling. Still, workers are nowhere to be seen. 25% of minimum wage isn't much.
Particularly as a lot of that is just keeping up with inflation. Many industries seem to prefer going bankrupt than pay their lowest level employees well.
If entire industries are going bankrupt then it indicates that the service they provide is not economically feasible. The end result is that consumers just have less choice due to reduced services.
Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#38In some Las Vegas hotels I no longer need to stop at a counter or stand in a line and it’s 1000x better experience. I can walk directly to my room and scan my phone. I can scan my phone for parking. I can grab extra keys at a kiosk, if I need them. I never have to talk to anyone, if I don’t want to. I also select the option not to have my room cleaned each day. I’ll ask someone in the hall for towels if I stay long e…
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Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#39> It's not for lack of trying. Hotels have raised hourly wages by 25% since early 2020, and employers are offering greater flexibility in scheduling. Still, workers are nowhere to be seen. 25% of minimum wage isn't much.
Particularly as a lot of that is just keeping up with inflation. Many industries seem to prefer going bankrupt than pay their lowest level employees well.
The fed by raising rates is trying to clean out these low-margin businesses by making them less attractive to investors. This means they will fire workers and stop buying goods which is supposed to bring down inflation.
Think about it, in the current environment, the choice becomes: 1. Invest in a low margin business or 2. just call it a day and buy Treasury bills at historically high interest rates and make a guaranteed state tax free return without having to work.
Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, about 1,245,000 of them died [1], and I'm sure there were a substantial number of older working-age people who went for early retirement to reduce the chances of dying from public contact. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
1.2 million people in the workforce died? 70% of covid deaths were over the age of 70 years. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2006392117
I hope this isn't too shocking but a lot of janitorial and housekeeping work is done by retirement aged people who don't have enough money to actually retire.