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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

#121

Post by aorloff »

thinking4real wrote: post #110
makeitdouble wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

My assumption is that these workers were absorbed into the economy of work at home - whether to be a homemaker, or to do childcare or eldercare that would previously have been contracted out, at the expense of the salaried worker, now are being done without pay outside of the auspices of the labor market.

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

#122

Post by ww520 »

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,…

Baby Boomers are retiring. Boomers are the largest working generation for a long while. Gen-X is the smallest of all groups and there aren't enough of them to fill up the positions. Millennials haven't been upto speed to fill the positions Gen-X left open. Gen-Z is just entering the labor force.

There's a huge investment push to rebuild a lot of places, institutions, manufactures in the U.S to secure the supply chain. Those require lots of workers.

There're just a shortage of labor everywhere.

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

#123

Post by EricDeb »

mikeyouse wrote: post #115
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The other big piece - especially to the hospitality puzzle - is that immigration was substantially reduced. First politically and then due to Covid. If you look at the number of work visas issued by year, we’re short literally millions of immigrants that would be doing much of the grunt work in restaurants and hotels.

visas are taking forever at the moment.. for any type

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

#124

Post by Gigachad »

TylerE wrote: post #113
somethoughts wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A non-researched guess would be some trifecta of early retirement, lower immigration and gig work. Gig work would be a more flexible alternative for a secondary wage earner. - delivery (Amazon/Instacart/Doordash) - rideshare (Uber/Lyft) - homestay (Airbnb/Vrbo) cleaning

A lot of people in that income bracket can’t afford a car

You can deliver food with a motorbike or regular bike.

I imagine delivering food in an inner city area on a bicycle is actually pretty decent since your expenses are minimal. I see quite a lot of people delivering on e-bikes daily.

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

#127

Post by Gigachad »

nitwit005 wrote: post #60
Aerroon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be clear, I mean they could make it work, they just won't do it for cultural reasons. Perfectly happy to pay management and consultants well, but unwilling to even consider it for the rank and file. Some studies on minimum wage increases have compared businesses across state lines, where one state has increased the minimum and the other has not. At least some of the time, the increase appears to benefit businesses…

The situation is self resolving though. Either they pay more, or they become unable to deliver the service. Since the companies can’t force people to work there, it’s out of their hands.

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

#128

Post by scruple »

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,…

The numbers are cooked.

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

#129

Post by colpabar »

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 way of saying this is that immigration inhibits wage growth.

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

#130

Post by xyzelement »

norvvryo wrote: post #57
notwokeno wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually not even sure that's it. What do you get with the tokens you're paid in? The ability to participate in society. There's no longer a society to participate in though as all the social institutions have been deconstructed. Marriage, land ownership, religion, tradition, real communities, family is still nominally there but there's little left of it. It's not like people are going to starve to death if they…

I recently transitioned from long term NEET to full time work and this is hitting me hard. I just end up sitting at home alone playing video games all weekend anyway. What's the point of working the other five days? Especially if the work isn't enjoyable.

Maybe you can explain this to me because I never understand this "why work?" sentiment. How do you pay your rent, have food, etc. without working?
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