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A fast-food manager was taking to his crew, a dozen people standing around him.
He said, "I have good news, and I have bad news.
"The good news is, the new Federal minimum-wage laws say I have to pay you more.
"The bad news is, I can't afford that, so two of you are fired."
The manager, instead of keeping the twelve and shelling out an extra $2,016 a week (12 employees getting an extra dollar an hour x 24 hours/day x 7 days a week) fires two employees. Now he's only shelling out an extra $1,680 per week.
Whereas the store consistently brought in, say, $10,000 gross in a 24-hour period, his business now begins to fall off because people want 'fast' food, and with fewer employees the lines get longer and longer and people (customers) don't want to wait; they want FAST food. Customers stop going to that store, because let's face it these stores are all over the place; they can just go to another where they will get faster service.
Damn, says the fast food manager; I should have kept all twelve employees!
Minimum wage jobs used to be a local or at least national market- thus was tied to the price of goods in America and were decent.
The second outsourcing of say tech support to India became cheaper due to the lowering of telecom prices- the 40 year old with a high school diploma who could make 30-40k as tech support or as an operator was now in competition with a guy from Mumbai who can live on $1 a day. The 40 year old American can't come in at a lower price and thus is left out.
The competition for these relativley unskilled positions has gone from being local to global. And the higher cost of living means the unskilled American worker loses for any job that can be outsourced easily.
The manager, instead of keeping the twelve and shelling out an extra $2,016 a week (12 employees getting an extra dollar an hour x 24 hours/day x 7 days a week) fires two employees. Now he's only shelling out an extra $1,680 per week.
Whereas the store consistently brought in, say, $10,000 gross in a 24-hour period, his business now begins to fall off because people want 'fast' food, and with fewer employees the lines get longer and longer and people (customers) don't want to wait; they want FAST food. Customers stop going to that store, because let's face it these stores are all over the place; they can just go to another where they will get faster service.
Damn, says the fast food manager; I should have kept all twelve employees!
Nah..you probably don't know about scheduling software the manager can use.
The software has the traffic data of the store and knows the crowds come in from 11-1 and 5-8 so the scheduling software has 4 cashier slots to be filled during the rush times and 2 slots to be filled during the down time.
Technology is helping businesses to work "smarter". Your scenario is old thinking.
You've heard of JIT ? "Just in Time" in which software tracks and controls inventory and now labor.
That's one reason you see more "empty shelves" in the store every so often. The truck didn't get there in time for one reason or another because store inventory now is bare minimum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/bu...pagewanted=all
Many retailers now use sophisticated software that tracks the flow of customers, allowing managers to assign just enough employees to handle the anticipated demand. “Many employers now schedule shifts as short as two or three hours, while historically they may have scheduled eight-hour shifts,” said David Ossip, founder of Dayforce, a producer of scheduling software used by chains like Aéropostale and Pier One Imports.
I am all for the minimum wage being set at the cost of living level to allow people to be independent of the government as well as possibly make enough to be taxed.
How do we do this and not have inflation eat it up?
Thinking someone else will always take care of you is a really poor plan. Every woman should be capable of taking care of her kids. She owes them that much.
If California has a minimum wage law of of $15 an hour and Nevada has one of $10 then companies that pay those wages will locate in Nevada.
Same with taxes and regulations. If the U.S. government decided to keep corporate taxes high and taxes onerous then businesses will move to Mexico and China. Oh wait......that as already happened.
Nah..you probably don't know about scheduling software the manager can use.
The software has the traffic data of the store and knows the crowds come in from 11-1 and 5-8 so the scheduling software has 4 cashier slots to be filled during the rush times and 2 slots to be filled during the down time.
Technology is helping businesses to work "smarter". Your scenario is old thinking.
You've heard of JIT ? "Just in Time" in which software tracks and controls inventory and now labor.
That's one reason you see more "empty shelves" in the store every so often. The truck didn't get there in time for one reason or another because store inventory now is bare minimum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/bu...pagewanted=all
Many retailers now use sophisticated software that tracks the flow of customers, allowing managers to assign just enough employees to handle the anticipated demand. “Many employers now schedule shifts as short as two or three hours, while historically they may have scheduled eight-hour shifts,” said David Ossip, founder of Dayforce, a producer of scheduling software used by chains like Aéropostale and Pier One Imports.
I am all for the minimum wage being set at the cost of living level to allow people to be independent of the government as well as possibly make enough to be taxed.
How can someone be independent of government and pay taxes????
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