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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

#101

Post by supertrope »

SoftTalker wrote: post #69
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.

They spent weeks on end at home, and realized it didn't suck as bad as they thought it would. You can save a lot of money by not eating out, going out, etc. and just staying home and playing a board game with the family.

There was a lot of substitution of goods purchases in lieu of services.

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

#102

Post by fein »

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.

The one rule I learned while traveling over the years for work is to only ever book with the hotel directly. You open yourself up to much more annoying problems when dealing with third party booking regarding any sort of problem resolution with the reservation.

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

#103

Post by enumjorge »

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,…

> But how is it better to sit at home making $0 than working and having an income?

In one of the young couples in my extended family, the mom recently stopped working because daycare cost more than what she was bringing in. I’ve heard this isn’t uncommon. This doesn’t explain the worker shortage at a macro level, but it’s one example where staying at home might make more sense than working.

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

#104

Post by shagie »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #82
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.

Another thing to toss into the mix... the immigrant housekeeper in the US on a visa would be working on a H-2B visa.

https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

These are temporary and are at most 3 years. There is similar "if you don't have a job, you leave."

Add in the 2016 through 2020 was less favorable to immigration.

While past years, we haven't hit the visa cap for H-2B (like we do for H-1B), in 2022, applicants hit the cap ( https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/10/12/dhs-supplement-h-2b-cap-... https://www.marketplace.org/2022/12/14/the-u-s-is-nearly-dou... https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/1134417921/could-foreign-work... )

This means that in the past it was possible to reliably get people to work on the H-2B visa, and now you can't. Additionally, those "out of work" meant that people had to leave and start over reducing the pool of H-2B visa workers.

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

#105

Post by yardstick »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #14
codazoda wrote: post #2

In 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…

I would want any hotel I stay in to have mandated at least weekly hotel room cleaning, or at least weekly inspection. Too many people are sufficiently dirty that it can easily cause pest issues, as well as other damages.

After the Las Vegas massacre, a lot of hotels will enter even if house keeping is always declined.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-hotels-revis...

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

#107

Post by lotsofpulp »

cmdli wrote: post #78
KennyBlanken wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary structural issue is that low-income wages have completely stagnated if not fallen with the inflation over the last several decades while wages for mid-upper to ultrawealthy have gone up, dramatically. The number of places in the US that you can get a 2BR home, rental or owning, on minimum wage is basically non-existent. We're on the verge of large swaths of the US population effectively becoming serfs. Ho…

> The primary structural issue is that low-income wages have completely stagnated if not fallen with the inflation over the last several decades while wages for mid-upper to ultrawealthy have gone up, dramatically. This is statistically untrue, though a very popular misconception. Median wages have increased slightly after adjusting for inflation over the past few decades [1]. Minimum wage has wavered a bit since the…

Median does not capture adjustments at the bottom 2 quintiles, which is where hotel room cleaners probably are:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0103M

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0104M

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

#108

Post by lotsofpulp »

yardstick wrote: post #105
lotsofpulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would want any hotel I stay in to have mandated at least weekly hotel room cleaning, or at least weekly inspection. Too many people are sufficiently dirty that it can easily cause pest issues, as well as other damages.

After the Las Vegas massacre, a lot of hotels will enter even if house keeping is always declined. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-hotels-revis...

Especially since the hotel and the hotel’s insurers ended up paying $800M:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-settlement-m...

> Jim Frantz, whose San Diego-based law firm represents another 199 victims including Romo, said Thursday's settlement is a good first step. Now MGM must strengthen the security protocol at all their facilities, he said.

>"I would assume a responsible business, after going through something like this, would institute the highest level of security," Frantz said, adding that the company should add metal detectors and Navy SEAL-type security guards. "As long as we have automatic weapons, we've got to be on high alert with all our security."

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

#109

Post by brookst »

vxNsr wrote: post #87
cmdli wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That’s about 1.5m people, so. . . Maybe?

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

#110

Post by thinking4real »

makeitdouble wrote: post #66
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,…

> But how is it better to sit at home making $0 than working and having an income? I had that very discussion with a co-worker leaving. They told me working wasn't worth their time, and they'd better care for their home, family, themselves etc. instead. And it wasn't that they were rich or their partner had a high paying job, more that the cost of daycare, private teacher, eating outside every day, work related stuff…

Ok, but this is still missing a very important element - where the hell are they getting finances to live?

The point OP is making us these people probably need ~$2000 a month to live at an absolute minimum. No luxury, no gadgets, just getting by.

How does one decide “working isn’t worth it” but still magically has these funds?

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