391–400 of 521 posts
Again, it’s not a staffing shortage, it’s an entire population fleeing an industry due to a pay shortage
Agreed! It’s not that people don’t want to work, they don’t want to work for $16 an hour, with no benefits, and get discarded on a whim to make the quarterlies look good. I don’t blame them.
I was in Vegas last month and they were advertising something like $12-13/hr for hotel cleaning jobs. In Vegas! Bonkers.
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All the hotel brands offer best price guarantees where they will give you a discount if you are able to reserve with a lower price elsewhere. The reservation systems are setup so that the pricing that goes out to priceline and Expedia is higher than what is on the hotel brand’s website. https://www.marriott.com/look/claimForm.mi https://www.hyatt.com/info/best-rate-guarantee https://www.hilton.com/en/p/price-match-gu…
Unless you do a “mystery” deal, where you can save a ton in exchange for some uncertainty. It’s always worked pretty well for me, tbh.
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> 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.
I stepped away from the professional world and am working retail for 15/hr while I get my shit sorted out. This only works due to the following factors:
1.) I have zero commute expenses. I live a five minute walk from work.
2.) I have state provided healthcare independent of my employment, which most Americans can't get. I'm only eligible because I have a severe disability.
3.) I live in a LCOL area. We're still under 1k for a two bedroom apartment and houses can be had for ~100-150k.
4.) I have some professional contacts/a network with higher incomes that can help me out if I need it and don't abuse the relationships.
We're still struggling a lot. If you're going to be homeless with or without a job, why bother with a job?
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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.
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They did say 'if they don't want to'...and how many of us can honestly say that we want to talk to someone ALL OF THE TIME? Talking to someone about checking in for a hotel room, after waiting for 10 minutes in a check in line...is not what I would call a fulfilling experience. Communication does not make us human, plenty of other species communicate...there are far more intricate and unique things that make us what…
> You're equating someone's wish to not have to wait at a check out counter to being anti-social...come on. Yes, 10 minutes waiting in a hotel lobby, which is by definition a societal space, is, well, social. Actively wanting go avoid that is, well, anti-social. Anyway, it's a losing battle at this point.
I love parties, deep conversations, etc. but as an introverted person, a day of excessive unnecessary interaction makes those interactions I do enjoy no longer enjoyable, and just a chore. By managing my social energy I am able to be a warm, friendly, and outgoing social person. If you met me at a party you probably would not guess that I’m introverted, because I am not antisocial. Yet, I would be willing to pay a lot more for a hotel room where I don’t have to make small talk at a front desk while checking in.
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Those people driving for those gig apps often value the flexibility of not having a set schedule. I don't think that style of work is very compatible with hotel housekeeping.
Some do, some don't. On the margin, higher pay incentivizes people to compromise their preferences. As a silly example, imagine if all hotels started paying $200 an hour to their cleaning staff. I think we can probably all agree that they would be flooded with workers and have no shortage at all. Given that there is a shortage now, we can infer that there's a pay point between the current prevailing wages and $200/hr…
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> Maybe there is an actual shortage. Then any single hotel can solve the shortage by paying more, but hotels in general can't. Sure they can - by drawing workers from other, non-hotel sectors; and other locations. You think all those people delivering for uber eats and making 1-hour amazon deliveries couldn't learn to make a bed? And if your hotel's in the expensive city centre and your workers have to travel from th…
Of course hotels can attract people from other sectors if they choose to pay ridiculous wages (like $100/hour). That observation is true but not necessarily useful. Sometimes other perspectives are more useful. Maybe the shortage is real and the reason for it is cultural. In some places, hotel housekeeping is seen as temporary work. It's something people in specific demographic groups do for a few years before moving…
Its not a shortage of workers, it's a shortage of underpayable workers.
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…
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Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, they will inevitably end up with hoarders and people that keep food lying around and then comes cockroaches and rats and odors, etc.
> But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, ... Yet I think people regularly stay for weeks with Airbnb/Vrbo without any host inspection or cleaning. I agree with your conclusion (filthy guests who stay weeks invite pest problems) ... so if the big bad old hotel industry needs to market their advantages, maybe there's an Institutuionally Clean angle.
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Even if there is some food lying around in a room on the 3rd floor, the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air. Unless the hygienic conditions are generally bad anyway, but then the hotel has a bigger problem than one dirty room...
I once heard that nowhere on Earth you're ever more than 6 meters away from a rat. I don't think that's true, but it's probably still a bad idea to blindly assume that there's no vermin anywhere. You keep vermin away by not feeding them.