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Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

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Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#161

Post by cushychicken »

kvonhorn wrote: post #159
cushychicken wrote: post #49

He has one cook right now, who is working overtime and extra shifts. That cook should be asking for a raise, right now. His angle: "If you pay me more, I can probably find someone else I know to come work here."

I think his angle is "I can shut down the entire business if I leave."

Same message, more direct.

My own experience suggests that carrot > stick 9/10 times when it comes to salary negotiations, however.

Phrasing as an opportunity generally lands better than phrasing as a threat.

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#162

Post by andrew_ »

axaxs wrote: post #153
andrew_ wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love HN. Anecdotal evidence that goes against the accepted narrative will be downvoted to oblivion. Anecdotal evidence that supports the narrative is praised.

I mean... you're being rather confrontational for no reason IMO. The topic is about staffing shortages in one city. I laid out my experience seeing this same thing elsewhere. And two different people tell you they see it in Florida. Instead of adding your input, which is valid, you seem to contest everyone else. That's my opinion. But I didn't downvote you, as I cannot. I'm glad Tampa doesn't have the same issue most…

reviewing your other comments on HN, you seem to skew towards assuming hostility or contention, rather than the opposite. I suggest you're viewing my comments through the same lens.

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#163

Post by listless »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #157
listless wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it becomes widespread? And every restaurant raises wages to attract workers while also raising prices? In other words, we need some people to be paid very little to produce the cheap food for these hire paid food service workers. Where is the bottom?

Something seems to be fundamentally wrong with an economy where we think that we need people to work in jobs that are paid so little that these people can't make a living. and it's viewed as a problem to raise their incomes. This while at the same time some people are becoming very rich and the country considers itself very wealthy.

To be clear, I don't know that anyone thinks that we need people to work in jobs where they are paid so little that they can't make a living. I think those jobs work very well for students and folks who need part time income.

What I am debating is whether raising rages simply causes inflation that then negates the effect of the wage. That's not a problem with an economy per-say, but rather just how an economy works. But perhaps I'm missing something.

All of that said, I share the concern about wealth inequality. A country will eventually collapse if the people at the bottom feel like the game is rigged and they will never get ahead.

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#164

Post by rekabis »

ActorNightly wrote: post #127
aazaa wrote: post #96

> “You put an ad out and nobody even interviews,” Wilderotter said, echoing Barrios. That's because you're not offering enough money. Raise it by 20%, 50%, 200%. Keep raising it until you get qualified applicants. You will eventually find a price that attracts the people your business needs. And if that price is too high to turn a profit and there's no other way, shut down. Article after article with business owners…

The issue is that a lot of places are ran on thin profit margins. You would have to raise the price of goods, which then means you have to raise the quality of goods as well to outcompete highly optimized chain restaurants.

Thin profit margins? Oh, boo hoo! So frickin what?

The free market runs in both directions. When labour is available, businesses use it to cram down wages - “if you don’t like it, find another job”.

But why is it, now that there is a wage shortage, we cannot use those same words back at businesses? “If you don’t like the lack of workers, increase the wage you are offering”?

Because that is exactly the problem. The free market is looking at the offered wages, and are showing businesses that those wages are not high enough in the simplest and most unambiguous way possible - with zero applicants.

And yet, businesses are squalling like spoiled, entitled babies that have just hit themselves with a hammer, and are blaming anyone but themselves.

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#165

Post by spaetzleesser »

listless wrote: post #163
spaetzleesser wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something seems to be fundamentally wrong with an economy where we think that we need people to work in jobs that are paid so little that these people can't make a living. and it's viewed as a problem to raise their incomes. This while at the same time some people are becoming very rich and the country considers itself very wealthy.

To be clear, I don't know that anyone thinks that we need people to work in jobs where they are paid so little that they can't make a living. I think those jobs work very well for students and folks who need part time income. What I am debating is whether raising rages simply causes inflation that then negates the effect of the wage. That's not a problem with an economy per-say, but rather just how an economy works.…

“What I am debating is whether raising rages simply causes inflation that then negates the effect of the wage.”

You could argue that exactly this has happened when upper incomes were raised disproportionately in the last few decades. All the major expenses/investments of that class like housing, health care, education, stocks and others shot up. Seems there is more money around than they can use productively so they just kept bidding up prices.

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#166

Post by listless »

over_bridge wrote: post #136
listless wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the “pay people more” sentiment. It _seems_ like the correct and obvious solution, but it seems like it just moves the goal line. Margins are razor thin in restaurants specifically. If you pay people more, you’ll need to raise your prices and that will offset the pay raise if it happens across the board. What am I missing?

I suppose for a restaurant specifically, the people who work there and who eat there are very different. If higher wages leads to higher unit price, its not the worker paying that difference, its the wealthier customers. Of course in the general case, the places the workers do shop at, probably supermarkets, will notice that people have more money to spend and will likely try to capture that extra money for themselve…

"So continues the endless, exhausting and unwinnable battle between wages and inflation"

That's how it seems to me as well. This article also mentions it towards the bottom in reference to restaurants in New Orleans...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/is-raising-the-minimum-wag...

Do we have any examples / models where people having figured out how to raise the bottom without raising the entire ladder?

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#167

Post by dragonwriter »

over_bridge wrote: post #136
listless wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the “pay people more” sentiment. It _seems_ like the correct and obvious solution, but it seems like it just moves the goal line. Margins are razor thin in restaurants specifically. If you pay people more, you’ll need to raise your prices and that will offset the pay raise if it happens across the board. What am I missing?

I suppose for a restaurant specifically, the people who work there and who eat there are very different. If higher wages leads to higher unit price, its not the worker paying that difference, its the wealthier customers. Of course in the general case, the places the workers do shop at, probably supermarkets, will notice that people have more money to spend and will likely try to capture that extra money for themselve…

> If higher wages leads to higher unit price, its not the worker paying that difference, its the wealthier customers.

But those wealthier customers probably provide high-end labor inputs to goods and services the redtaurant worker consumes, so driving up their expenses increases their salary demands which drives up the costs of the goods and services their labor contributes to, thus driving up the restaurant worker’s cost of living.

Obviously this will be very attenuated, but it is a real effect.

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#168

Post by dragonwriter »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #157
listless wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it becomes widespread? And every restaurant raises wages to attract workers while also raising prices? In other words, we need some people to be paid very little to produce the cheap food for these hire paid food service workers. Where is the bottom?

Something seems to be fundamentally wrong with an economy where we think that we need people to work in jobs that are paid so little that these people can't make a living. and it's viewed as a problem to raise their incomes. This while at the same time some people are becoming very rich and the country considers itself very wealthy.

> Something seems to be fundamentally wrong with an economy where we think that we need people to work in jobs that are paid so little that these people can't make a living. and it's viewed as a problem to raise their incomes.

The problem here is equating wages and income.

It is to everyone’s benefit if jobs with a net positive value get done, even if the value isn't enough to support the worker at an adequate lifestyle without supplementation.

Everyone should also have income to support an adequate lifestyle, but there's no reason that needs to come from wages — that's what a social welfare system, whether classical or UBI-based — ought to guarantee.

Say we decide $1,000/month is the minimum support level. It is generally better that a job that the market would pay $500/month gets done, the profits of owners and wages of higher level employees resulting from that job being done get paid and taxed, and the worker gets at least $500 in social support than that the job goes undone, the taxes on the other income streams dependent on it go unpaid, and the worker collects $1,000 in social support. And its even worse for the worker in the latter case if the minimum income we demand to allow work is higher than the social support we provide the able bodied without work (which is generally the case in the US, especially unless you have dependent children, outside of short-term unemployment of those who previously had sufficient income for UI to provide an adequate temporary support.)

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#169

Post by andrew_ »

axaxs wrote: post #154
andrew_ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't ask a question. So your milage varies - not surprising. My experience differs vastly with yours. I've yet to see an understaffed establishment in the Tampa Bay area, nor the three metro areas in FL I've been in recently. Different experience, doesn't make it any less valid.

You asked me to be more nuanced. Or told me. I'm just asking what you meant by that specifically.

I made a request for more nuance, which you provided in a follow up reply. I certainly did not demand that of you; to do so would have been laughable.

Re: Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling small businesses during its busiest season

#170

Post by hattmall »

over_bridge wrote: post #138
gotoeleven wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>If you need to hold hunger and homelessness over people’s heads in order to make them work, maybe your system is morally bankrupt? You mean the human condition? Life has always been this way and since we're not a post-scarcity society yet I don't see how any workable system would not be morally bankrupt by this standard.

I think we've gone from actual scarcity to the current era of artificial scarcity. Hopefully we get to post-scarcity once we solve that. We have plenty of everything, enough for everyone but we allocate and distribute it too inefficiently. Supermarkets destroy their unsold food, and Amazon their unsold products. Zoning laws mandate low density areas when we have the engineering to build enough homes for all verticall…

So your comment just made me think about this differently in a new context of limiting the artificial scarcity. There is a store near me, that has bins and everything is one price. It drops each day of the week and resets on Friday to $10. The lowest day is 0.50 cent. The store is selling all Amazon and Target discarded items. I go on the $1 and 0.50 day and can easily buy enough food, clothes, cosmetics and household goods to survive a week for like $20, if not less.

So realistically it's a decent way of managing the excess and providing equality.

They don't sell like produce obviously but the food is almost never expired only expiring soon sometimes.

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