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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

#111
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even bad hotels do this, because people lose their shit and do chargebacks if they end up in an uncleaned room. Source: a close friend works at a really bad hotel.

So if your friend says this, this implies that uncleaned rooms do happen from time to time, right?

People make mistakes.

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

#112
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marriage, land ownership, religion, tradition, real communities, family is still nominally there but there's little left of it. Curious about where you live and where you grew up? I ask because none of these rings true for me. Many of my friends have bought homes and started families, along the way, they’ve created their own traditions, and are part of communities where they know their neighbors. And this isn’t in…

The point is about a snowballing larger societal collapse, led by the US and UK. (But it will reach everywhere eventually.) If you and your friends are rich and dull enough, you can ostrich-hole it for a while yet. If you want to see the canary in the coal mine, try befriending someone who works in the service industry.

People were working harder for even less a hundred years ago and society didn't collapse.

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

#113

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,…

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

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

#114

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

The solution to this in Canada seems to be to allow a lot of immigrants from poorer countries, willing to live two to a bedroom. Fast food places, Walmart, and other places are now fully staffed thanks to that policy. I know for a fact that it's the case, because in my town it's a very large demographic change from recognizable ethnicity where 5 years ago there was almost none. Unfortunately Canada is a a very expensive place to live, and living 2 to a bedroom is how they can make the pay work.

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

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#116
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

4M of them got long covid and are unable to be worker that is sufficiently reliable for shift work in the service sector. https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-data-shows-long-covid...

That’s what is a massive issue I see in the EU even if it’s underreported; too many people I know cannot work because of long covid. Some tried anyway and burnt out because of trying too hard; now they have 2 problems. Luckily most of them are in NL where you won’t end up in a tent under a bridge, but I think long covid is taken way too light (at least over here).

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

#117
post #63
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.

When you book with an OTA, you're the OTA's customer, not the hotel's customer.

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

#118

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…

>Consider this: Elon Musk at peak of his wealth had more money than all the residents of Massachusetts (itself quite a wealthy state) combined, by a significant margin. There is no way this is anywhere near true. The list below alone is probably $100B, and there are 7M people in Massachusetts, including many with net worths in the millions. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/these-are-the-16-riches...

Lots of people with zero or even negative net worths too

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

#119
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. The keyword here is "should". I don't have much faith that hotels will actually do this.

Even bad hotels do this, because people lose their shit and do chargebacks if they end up in an uncleaned room. Source: a close friend works at a really bad hotel.

I recently made a bad choice in hotel and ended up at a fairly dodgy looking place, most of the lights in the room didn’t function and the shower didn’t work properly, but it was spotlessly clean so I accepted the mistake.

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

#120
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is about a snowballing larger societal collapse, led by the US and UK. (But it will reach everywhere eventually.) If you and your friends are rich and dull enough, you can ostrich-hole it for a while yet. If you want to see the canary in the coal mine, try befriending someone who works in the service industry.

People were working harder for even less a hundred years ago and society didn't collapse.

So what are people missing today?
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