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The problem is companies raising wages on new hires has to increase wages on their existing work force too or have a pisssed off work force .
You can’t pay the same thing to a worker who has learned more and does more over the years and then pay the unproven newcomer more or the same money for doing less .
So it really effects pay all up and down the scale
While you describe it as The Problem, the current Administration sees it as a benefit and and a desired outcome.
That is the Biden Administration's desired outcome. They are giving each other high-fives.
Not many are going to work that job for that wage in Montauk or the Hampton's. It just isn’t worth it for the population that currently lives there. When poor international college students or those who want a fun summer at the beach are allowed back in then they will take those jobs. Unless there is a low income housing available, there is no pool of American workers willing to work for those wages. It is unaffordable to live there and work those jobs.
Who is high fiving about the worker shortage in the hamptons exactly? Biden? I don’t think so.
What I wonder is whether these restaurants are calling their previous employees and asking them to return. Are they calling? If not, then why not?
If they are calling and the old employees are saying no, do they say why not?
Are the old employees telling the old boss "No, because I get more money from unemployment". I suspect that story is something that comes from one anecdote and has been repeated without any verification to see if it's the general case.
I kind of suspect that many people were laid off by companies that said good luck, *********, don't call us. So now the tables are turned.
I've made those calls for my school. We laid off basically every frontline worker, janitor, food service worker, etc... which was about 25% of the staff. I was tasked with calling some of them.
A year is a long time and housing prices have skyrocketed. A lot of them just left. Went to live with family hundreds of miles away and are working some other job now. Some were still around but could not work the hours we need because of childcare. Some have been working gigs and were eager to get back.
No one told me that they were making more off of unemployment and never wanted to work again. That's kind of ridiculous.
Not many are going to work that job for that wage in Montauk or the Hampton's. It just isn’t worth it for the population that currently lives there. When poor international college students or those who want a fun summer at the beach are allowed back in then they will take those jobs. Unless there is a low income housing available, there is no pool of American workers willing to work for those wages. It is unaffordable to live there and work those jobs.
Who is high fiving about the worker shortage in the hamptons exactly? Biden? I don’t think so.
The Biden administration cares about many things. The worker shortage in The Hamptons is most definitely not one of them.
The objective of the Biden administration has been to increase the minimum wage. There are two ways to achieve that: (a) by legislation, or (b) by raising unemployment compensation to the point where employers must raise wages. They didn't have the votes to do it via direct legislation. However, they did have the votes to do it via increased unemployment compensation.
Objective achieved. Mission accomplished. High Fives from the Biden Administration.
Last edited by RationalExpectations; 05-16-2021 at 09:49 AM..
What I wonder is whether these restaurants are calling their previous employees and asking them to return. Are they calling? If not, then why not?
If they are calling and the old employees are saying no, do they say why not?
Are the old employees telling the old boss "No, because I get more money from unemployment". I suspect that story is something that comes from one anecdote and has been repeated without any verification to see if it's the general case.
I kind of suspect that many people were laid off by companies that said good luck, *********, don't call us. So now the tables are turned.
Yes...to a degree.
As I wrote in my earlier post (#10), there are a multitude of factors at play here.
A long-standing chef shortage that well predated COVID.
Pitifully stagnant wages. Some restaurants have kept up with the times and pay their employees well, but others are still paying like it's 1998 and a two-bedroom apartment can be had for $400 a month.
Underemployment combined with employers who want open availability from their employees even when they either cannot or will not provide full-time employment thus keeping their employees from cobbling together several part time jobs/gigs.
A fair number of people took Ivanka Trump's advice to "find something new"--especially those who realized what having time for family and their own physical and mental health could be and who no longer wished to work for people who didn't fully appreciate them, their skills, and their time. Still others are in the process of attaining new skills and will not be returning to the industry.
A few in the latter group decided to go forth on their own and open their own small businesses. Around here, a lot of the employees who were lower on the restaurant food chain (dishwasher, stewards, etc.) who had access to a car or at least a ride to work, chose to work for Amazon--a job that comes with regular hours and benefits. Still others have found that the gig economy to be preferable to a more traditional way of making a living.
The truth is now that COVID has eased a bit, the state will boot a person off the unemployment compensation rolls if he/she refuses work. If those who decided to ride out things a bit longer while on the dole turn down jobs, they're going to find themselves without an income when their UE compensation is taken from them by the state.
A correction in terms of wages and benefits was long overdue in the restaurant industry and was one that was well underway even before the pandemic struck--especially as restaurants sought to severely reduce employee turnover and promote retention of skilled and valued employees. It costs time and money to onboard staff and employee burnout is an issue, so preventing employees from wishing to move on to greener pastures is finally something that good restauranteurs have been working on doing for the past few years. The old-school way of a yelling/abusive chef with underlings who were willing to work eighty hours a week for peanuts to attain knowledge has been dying out for a while now and is gradually being replaced with new ways of thinking and doing things. With fewer workers wiling to remain or go into the restaurant industry, employers are going to have to "sweeten the pot" in terms of wages and benefits in order to attract and subsequently retain them.
It's going to be interesting to see how things shake out in the long term, keeping in mind that I'm not referring to restaurant jobs such as fast food or even fast casual chains but restaurants that have a lot more moving parts and require different skill sets.
Last edited by Formerly Known As Twenty; 05-16-2021 at 11:27 AM..
Not many are going to work that job for that wage in Montauk or the Hampton's. It just isn’t worth it for the population that currently lives there. When poor international college students or those who want a fun summer at the beach are allowed back in then they will take those jobs. Unless there is a low income housing available, there is no pool of American workers willing to work for those wages. It is unaffordable to live there and work those jobs.
Who is high fiving about the worker shortage in the hamptons exactly? Biden? I don’t think so.
My 17 year old daughter babysits in East Hampton every summer. Her families from last summer are already calling her, trying to lock her in, by offering her $30 an hour.
It's a combination of more people being out there since COVID, and none of the students from Ireland, Australia, etc out there working summer jobs like they used to before COVID.
As I wrote in my earlier post (#10), there are a multitude of factors at play here.
A long-standing chef shortage that well predated COVID.
Pitifully stagnant wages. Some restaurants have kept up with the times and pay their employees well, but others are still paying like it's 1998 and a two-bedroom apartment can be had for $400 a month.
Underemployment combined with employers who want open availability from their employees even when they either cannot or will not provide full-time employment thus keeping their employees from cobbling together several part time jobs/gigs.
A fair number of people took Ivanka Trump's advice to "find something new"--especially those who realized what having time for family and their own physical and mental health could be and who no longer wished to work for people who didn't fully appreciate them, their skills, and their time. Still others are in the process of attaining new skills and will not be returning to the industry.
A few in the latter group decided to go forth on their own and open their own small businesses. Around here, a lot of the employees who were lower on the restaurant food chain (dishwasher, stewards, etc.) who had access to a car or at least a ride to work, chose to work for Amazon--a job that comes with regular hours and benefits. Still others have found that the gig economy to be preferable to a more traditional way of making a living.
The truth is now that COVID has eased a bit, the state will boot a person off the unemployment compensation rolls if he/she refuses work. If those who decided to ride out things a bit longer while on the dole turn down jobs, they're going to find themselves without an income when their UE compensation is taken from them by the state.
A correction in terms of wages and benefits was long overdue in the restaurant industry and was one that was well underway even before the pandemic struck--especially as restaurants sought to severely reduce employee turnover and promote retention of skilled and valued employees. It costs time and money to onboard staff and employee burnout is an issue, so preventing employees from wishing to move on to greener pastures is finally something that good restauranteurs have been working on doing for the past few years. The old-school way of a yelling/abusive chef with underlings who were willing to work eighty hours a week for peanuts to attain knowledge has been dying out for a while now and is gradually being replaced with new ways of thinking and doing things. With fewer workers wiling to remain or go into the restaurant industry, employers are going to have to "sweeten the pot" in terms of wages and benefits in order to attract and subsequently retain them.
It's going to be interesting to see how things shake out in the long term, keeping in mind that I'm not referring to restaurant jobs such as fast food or even fast casual chains but restaurants that have a lot more moving parts and require different skill sets.
I have been going back to restaurants since they could legally reopen here in Tennessee at the end of last April (with very heavy restrictions then).
The biggest thing that I've noticed is that the places (usually locally owned) that reopened earlier kept most of their previous staff, and didn't have as many issues as places that remained closed. The local Mellow Mushroom, a regional pizza chain, remained closed for months after it could legally reopen. They are just now getting back into any semblance of "normal."
I have been going back to restaurants since they could legally reopen here in Tennessee at the end of last April (with very heavy restrictions then).
The biggest thing that I've noticed is that the places (usually locally owned) that reopened earlier kept most of their previous staff, and didn't have as many issues as places that remained closed. The local Mellow Mushroom, a regional pizza chain, remained closed for months after it could legally reopen. They are just now getting back into any semblance of "normal."
My renter returned to his previous workplace several months ago after working somewhere else since late May of last year. He's still not back to the hours that he'd been promised and had to fight to get the pay that he'd been offered when he was recalled---the former being because they're trying to *not* give him the benefits that he'd had access to pre-COVID. It's a story I keep hearing time and again from my folks who are still working in the industry.
The places that stayed open around here through the COVID restrictions tended to rely very heavily on their salaried staff. Bringing back the hourly staff has been another issue entirely as many of them did move onto other areas of the industry outside of restaurants (nursing facilities, retirement communities, local hospitals, country clubs, private cheffing/events) or completely different work (Amazon being big one around here).
There are very few of my restaurant people sitting on their cans collecting unemployment at this point in time--especially now that restrictions are in the process of being completely lifted and COVID-related UE bennies coming to an end. Things should normalize to pre-COVID conditions some degree in terms of staffing in a few months' time, I think. That is, still short-staffed, but normal short-staffed, if that makes any sense. Full time positions should be coming back before then as people begin to venture out more to spend their money on food and entertainment.
**Keep in mind that when I refer to restaurants, I'm generally referring to the back of the house staff rather than the customer-facing front of the house staff.
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