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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

#81

Post by ninth_ant »

Natsu wrote: post #36
matt3210 wrote: post #31

Its 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.

The rate it’s gone up is a red herring. If people don’t want to take the job at the posted rate then they are underpaying.

Instead of comparing if your pay has gone up 25%, ask if you’d rather take one of those jobs than yours. Because apparently that’s an option if you want.

There are almost certainly miserable working conditions, bad hours, and still an overall low wage. If people are able to find better jobs, then hotels need to treat people better or pay more to offset that.

Are we seriously going to cry about megacorps not getting away with paying workers trash wages for miserable jobs? Boo hoo, pay more.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#82

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

matt3210 wrote: post #31

Its not a shortage of workers, it's a shortage of underpayable workers.

This is likely true. I just read a report that said that the shortage highly correlates with the reduction of immigrants due to COVID and the tightening of immigration into the US. It may not be the only factor, but it is one that contributes to the shortage of service workers.

Like it or not, new immigrants are more likely to take jobs that pay less as compared to non-immigrants.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#83

Post by midoridensha »

rurp wrote: post #43
missedthecue wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes several million workers died, retired early, or weren't allowed to immigrate to the US.

>or weren't allowed to immigrate to the US.

Which is exactly as it should be. ~Half the country doesn't want them. If that results in hotel stays being absurdly expensive (or perhaps changing laws so that hotel rooms don't need to be cleaned between guests), then so be it. America is democratic, and the people have spoken, so now let them suffer the consequences.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#84

Post by supertrope »

missedthecue wrote: post #3

I 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,…

While a third of COVID-19 fatalities were people using nursing homes and by definition not employed, and the over 65 cohort was 90% of fatalities, hundreds of thousands of people left life as well as the workforce. Some seniors can’t afford to retire or prefer to keep a job. The most dangerous job by virus morbidity was line cook, a service/“essential worker” job.

Then add in those disabled by the virus.

Indirect effects include “not working” people who were incapacitated by the virus who normally babysat their grandkids enabling a parent to work (or they’re sheltering in place instead of babysitting). School closures forced many working parents to quit. People who already had a pre-existing condition or high risk occupation retired early in the face of an unknown virus with early estimates of 2% fatality and 10% for old people (we now know this was inflated due to testing not keeping up with spread). Service workers were laid off and had to move on to other jobs. Many used the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance as runway to a better industry, go to college, or just work less. The prospect of mortality shifted people’s time-money trade off toward working less.

The government restricted immigration and many foreigners who could come did not want to work in a highly infected country.

This is all overlaid on a long term decrease in the workforce participation rate due to baby boomer retirements.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#85

Post by wenc »

dawnerd wrote: post #63
wenc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In some Las Vegas hotels Not just Las Vegas hotels. Any hotel (Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, etc.) with an app that supports digital keys via Bluetooth already have this. I still like to check in at the counter though if it looks like it isn't too busy. I have elite status at these hotels, and they typically hand out free cookies or water at the counter, and I occasionally get a free discretionary room upgrade on the sp…

They need to let their phone check in work with OTAs. I just stayed at a Hilton and couldn’t use my phone as a key because I booked through hotels.com and the front desk refused to add my hhonors info to set it up. I know you can call in but not something I want to deal with after traveling all day.

I usually book through Concur (corporate booking site) and have never had any trouble.

Hotels.com might not be a supported OTA however, since they are a consolidator. You can't even get HHonors points with hotels.com.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/1887120...

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#86

Post by acchow »

ETH_start wrote: post #29

What this labor shortage indicates to me is that a significant number of people are willing to reduce the goods/services they consume, in exchange for having to work less. I'm not certain how COVID/lockdowns precipitated this change, but I'm fairly certain they were directly or indirectly the catalyst.

Reduce the goods and services they consume? This would show up as a drop in real GDP

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#87

Post by vxNsr »

cmdli wrote: post #72
bachmeier wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting piece of data that's seldom cited: Sep 2015 labor force participation rate: 62.4% August 2022 labor force participation rate: 62.4% https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

I mean, you did pick a particularly low point on that series. It looks like the average pre-pandemic is closer to 63.0%.

0.6% accounts for all the open positions?

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#88

Post by [deleted] »

mbg721 wrote: post #17

I always assumed the previous frequent room cleanings were more for the benefit of the hotel owner checking up on things than because guests demanded them. So if hoteliers think there isn't very much risk of people trashing their rooms, they don't need to have somebody come in every day.

[deleted]

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#89

Post by supertrope »

Natsu wrote: post #36
matt3210 wrote: post #31

Its 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.

Would you work for $16/hr with no health insurance? Hotels are notorious for not only not offering steady 40 hour employment but sending staff home if room count is low or calling people in with minimal notice.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#90

Post by lotsofpulp »

acchow wrote: post #80
lotsofpulp wrote: post #20

Earlier 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.

Working age population is 207M. So 1% actually translates to millions of people (2 million)

I admit that is technically true, but due to their use of the word “cratered”, I was reading the phrase to mean that relatively large amounts of people have decided to no longer work (outside of those who have decided to no longer work due to aging out).

Of course, prices are set at the margin, and so if hotels (and other businesses like restaurants and retail) were used to paying the lowest pay to quality of life at work ratio, then I guess it would be accurate to say their problem is a couple million people decided to no longer work, because presumably a greater proportion of those who decided to no longer work would have been from these least desirable to work in businesses.

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