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Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

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Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#91

Post by code_sardaukar »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #85
code_sardaukar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"months" sounds reasonable actually. "decades" and I would definitely agree with you. The problem with this sort of discussion is that everyone thinks they are worth more than the market will pay, and that the market is somehow broken.

Read this article, then spend a few days making ice cream, and you'll have a pretty solid grasp on it. I promise, months is an exaggeration. http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/08/how-many-eggs-should-i...

that's fascinating, though I'm not into sweet things enough to invest in the required equipment.

I do agree with your overall point that chef's skills probably aren't specialized or difficult enough to command high wages in the long term.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#92

Post by vmarsy »

mc32 wrote: post #90
vmarsy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent specifically mentioned Americans. It's much easier to find the right and good ingredients for a recipe in France than is it in the U.S. Go to any supermarket in France and buy flour for instance: you'll find type T45, T55, T65, T80, T110, T150 [1]. And professional pastry recipes will tell you exactly what type of flour in what quantities. In the U.S. you will only find "All Purpose flour". I know French p…

Supermarkets may only carry two or three types of flour, all purpose, 110, and "pastry flour" and perhaps some whole grain.... But that's not where most bakers get their flour, most will get it from someone who specializes in delivering baking goods who will have a larger selection.

You're right. I was trying to convey the idea that: If it's easier for the consumers, it's also probably even easier for the professionals.

I think those specialized deliverers are more rare in the U.S., and so the baker either has to pay for more expensive raw ingredients, or use lower quality.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#93

Post by kasey_junk »

danharaj wrote: post #30
harryh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is definitely some evidence for this hypothesis. If you read about the restaurant industry you'll see a lot of comments from restauranteurs that seem to indicate that they think the salary ratios between FOH and BOH staff are off. We've had a couple of restaurants in NYC go tip free, instead building the cost of service into the base cost of menu items. Unfortunately it appears that this can be a challenge beca…

Sounds like something an ordinance could solve.

Its a federal statute originally designed to prevent kitchen staff from being underplayed.

In the modern high end restaurant its back fired.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#94

Post by jethro_tell »

emodendroket wrote: post #74
jethro_tell wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? I don't believe there was much indication that that cost yahoo anything at all? The stock didn't respond. I doubt many customers left. The page rank has not changed. And there is no indication from previous large breaches that the customer cares or at least thinks anyone else is doing it better. So what leads you to think that the impact to a business (especially of comparable scale) would cause mor…

Yeah, Yahoo was already dying of attrition anyway. I suspect the majority of those accounts were not active.

That doesn't affect the alexa ranking. They still have a lot of traffic, and there's no indication it slowed in the month following.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#95

Post by code_sardaukar »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #89
dmamills wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hysterically ironic on a forum like hacker news.

The article directly makes the parallel case of programmers and code academies. I'd say the same thing about programmer wages and claims you need a 4 year degree to put up a wordpress blog or whatever you think the programming equivalent of making ice cream is. Bottom line is if your wages are low, then your skills aren't as valuable as you think, whether you are a coder, or creamer.

I think the endgame for programmers is very different to pastry chefs. Yes there are bootcamps, but part of their success is being selective in who they accept. No one has yet shown how to take an average person and get them a well paying programming job. Egalitarian dogma states that programmers don't have special abilities or interests but the market has been very stubborn so far.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#96

Post by nine_k »

emodendroket wrote: post #68
hughes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a more expensive pastry chef produce more expensive pastry? Or can a more experienced chef produce higher volume also? If the cost of the pastry increases with the cost of the chef, then it's entirely reasonable that there is a lower demand for more expensive pastry and therefore a lower demand for more expensive pastry chefs. With software development it's a little different - it's entirely possible for a more…

Do you really find it hard to believe that a more experienced pastry chef can make better pastries? I think this is the same frustrating myopia that makes people assume they all could easily write software the way you do except in reverse.

An experienced worker can work faster at the same level of quality, or at the normal pace or even slower but with a much higher quality, or a combination of these. Not being a domain expert, I can't tell for pastry chefs. (E.g. for sushi chefs, increase of speed seemingly dominates increase of quality, quality as experience grows.)

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#97

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Swizec wrote: post #7
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Drive" is right. It often seems like even at the cost of getting inferior work-product, many employers have come to believe that cheap labor is a moral principle. If employers would rather hire lower-skilled workers than pay over $35k/year, the pastry chefs should unionize.

"It often seems like even at the cost of getting inferior work-product, many customers have come to believe that cheap pastries are a moral principle." I think that's the gist of the issue. People want a $5 snack, not a $35 artisanal free-range organic pastry dining experience.

I have to agree with the user "douche" who also replied to you. Depending on where I've gone and how much of a baking culture the locality had, I've often had very cheap, very good food, especially vegetables and baked goods.

(Actually, I'm constantly frustrated that baked goods, especially bread, in the United States aren't made fresh and sold in bulk. The good life was five fluffy pitas, still warm from the oven, for about $2, shelved alongside sweet croissants and savory burekas selling for roughly $4/lb. By comparison, basically everything in America is just crap, especially when I'm paying for the $35 artisanal free-range organic crap.)

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#98

Post by bootload »

chewxy wrote: post #10
bootload wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People want a $5 snack, not a $35 artisanal free-range organic pastry dining experience." My local pâtisserie doesn't charge 5$AUD for a whole range of pastry ~ https://flickr.com/photos/bootload/albums/72157622498559456 The high prices you quote come not from materials, display or worker pay, more probably property location and market they position themselves in.

The prices seem a bit low for 2016. A pastry shop I frequent (not really frequently given my family went low-carbish a few years ago) had their eclairs go from $4.50 to $8 in over the past 5-6 years. :S. Granted they also became a lot more famous.

"The prices seem a bit low for 2016."

there are dates on the various shots. Haven't noticed price increases since then. The shop is owned by French owners who grow the fruit/veg (sans exotic). Famous in my town.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#99

Post by internaut »

throawaybay wrote: post #61
internaut wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you find the idea of a wage fixing cartel so bizarre? It's a phenomenon as old as labour markets themselves. The employer does not want a market for labour, they want a steady supply of workers for the lowest price. Since there are fewer employers than workers, it is easier to coordinate a plot against them. Also when the economy becomes more centralized and bigger companies swallow up smaller ones, you should…

I would have thought that Google and Facebook coming in would cause wages to rise?

I don't know about Facebook but yes, in Google's case they offer superior wages to their employees.

However that doesn't diminish my original statement because Google is likely to hire the most expensive talent and also their employees in London are paid I think about 30% less than their counterparts in the US. I suspect the American programmers are actually more effective at their jobs for a number of reasons e.g. being at ground zero when new domains open up but there is still likely to be wage gap which I'd explain by the depressed wage market in London. There are many very effective workers who ought to be paid twice or triple what they are currently earning. I know some of the younger programmers in the UK are being paid as little as 12-16k a year.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#100

Post by taneq »

Alupis wrote: post #56
Retric wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worked in a bakery? Doing it well is actually a complex balancing act based on materials and the environment. PS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

I don't know if Dunning Kruger actually applies well here. Parent is not assuming they are an expert/professional at baking, rather, Parent is assuming baking isn't difficult.

One aspect of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that your own lack of ability at a task precludes your ability to judge the difficulty of that task (because you don't know your unknown unknowns.)

This often surfaces in the software world as non-programmer managers asking "how hard could it be?" and assuming software developers are unskilled, interchangeable, replaceable cogs.

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