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Supply and demand is the cornerstone of capitalism. The fact that the balance of supply and demand in the labor market is working to the advantage of low wage workers for once seems to be making some people freak out. There was an unspoken narrative in Reaganite conservatism that poor people and the working class deserve bad lives. The fact that their lives are now improving runs counter to that.
In other news a lot of the food, liquor and supplies that my restaurant uses are going through spot shortages as the supply chain is all messed up due to the current demand surge. There are some products we would like to use that are currently on long back orders. Imported liquor like scotch, Irish whiskey and some wines from the EU are hard to get at times. We were told we couldn't get our usual bar napkins for a month.
Parts of the economy shut down due to covid, as they open back up things will be off for a while, it isn't just the labor market.
The issue isn't a perceived benefit for low wage workers, it's more that it's a result of an artificial reduction in supply of labor at the cost of money from taxpayers.
Take it another step and imagine the government paying anyone $100,000 a year to stay home and not work. Average wages would skyrocket, because anyone making less than $100 grand would be removed from the equation.
Of course paying for that would require many more printing presses and the dollar would massively inflate.
Are you saying the shortage is the same now as before the pandemic?
No it is worse now because a lot of people who worked in restaurants found jobs in other industries. Everybody I know who worked in restaurants before the pandemic is working again, but a lot of them left the industry.
The unspoken premise behind the argument you are making is that the working class is lazy and would sit around if given the chance. In reality most restaurant people who were laid off started to go crazy with cabin fever and took jobs just to get out of the house and have something to do. Nobody wants to be left scrambling for a job once unemployment runs out. With restaurants desperate to hire now is the time to find the job you want and demand the wage that you want. Everybody in the industry knows this, they want to get locked into the best job possible right now, which is why turnover is also really high. It isn't that there are a million cooks sitting on unemployment, it is that there aren't enough cooks and restaurants that don't pay well are losing the cooks they have because there is intense competition to hire staff between restaurants.
The deeper driver of the phenomenon is that from 1990 to 2007 or so there was a huge wave of undocumented workers coming into the US from Latin America to work in restaurants on fake papers. Latin America had a major population boom in that era and wasn't producing enough new jobs for all the new workers so the US absorbed the surplus. US restaurants got in the habit of not having to try hard to recruit workers because there was always a long line of Mexicans, Ecuadorians and Salvadorians willing to work for them. The Latin American baby boom came to an end in the '90s and by the time right before the financial crisis rolled around Latin American immigration had fallen to very low levels because those countries were now producing enough jobs for their people. The restaurant industry didn't have to face the consequences of that right away because the financial crisis led to high unemployment in the US but by 2014 or so the immigrant labor force in the US was no longer large enough to meet the industries labor demands so restaurants were forced to try to make their low paid kitchen jobs attractive to workers who were legitimately allowed to work in the country, which was something that they were out of the habit of trying to do. Over that time the pay scale for line cooks in my city went from $10 to $13 in 2010 to $15 to $20 an hour right before the pandemic. Through that whole era restaurants were complaining about a labor shortage. The labor shortage was that Mexicans and Ecuadorians had stopped coming. Now that more people have left the industry because of the pandemic wages are going higher, but what is happening now is just a continuation and acceleration of what was happening before the pandemic, because young Mexicans and Ecuadorians are still not coming to fill those job openings the way they used to.
No it is worse now because a lot of people who worked in restaurants found jobs in other industries. Everybody I know who worked in restaurants before the pandemic is working again, but a lot of them left the industry.
The unspoken premise behind the argument you are making is that the working class is lazy and would sit around if given the chance. In reality most restaurant people who were laid off started to go crazy with cabin fever and took jobs just to get out of the house and have something to do. Nobody wants to be left scrambling for a job once unemployment runs out. With restaurants desperate to hire now is the time to find the job you want and demand the wage that you want. Everybody in the industry knows this, they want to get locked into the best job possible right now, which is why turnover is also really high. It isn't that there a million cooks sitting on unemployment, it is that restaurants that don't pay well are losing the cooks they have because there is competition to hire staff between restaurants.
The deeper driver of the phenomenon is that from 1990 to 2007 or so there was a huge wave of undocumented workers coming into the US from Latin America to work in restaurants on fake papers. Latin America had a major population boom in that era and wasn't producing enough new jobs for all the new workers so the US absorbed the surplus. US restaurants got in the habit of not having to try hard to recruit workers because there was always a long line of Mexicans, Ecuadorians and Salvadorians willing to work for them. The Latin American baby boom came to an end in the '90s and by the time the financial crisis rolled around Latin American immigration had fallen to very low levels because those countries were now producing enough jobs for their people. The restaurant industry didn't have to face the consequences of that right away because the financial crisis led to high unemployment in the US but by 2014 or so the immigrant labor force in the US was no longer large enough to meet the industries labor demands so restaurants were forced to try to make their low paid kitchen jobs attractive to workers who were legitimately allowed to work in the country, which was something that they were out of the habit of trying to do. Over that time the pay scale for line cooks in my city went from $10 to $13 in 2010 to $15 to $20 an hour right before the pandemic. Now that more people have left the industry they are going higher than that, but what is happening now is just a continuation and acceleration of what was happening before the pandemic.
Except millions of jobs were unavailable due to so many businesses being considered non-essential, hence so many people being unemployed. Where did all of these restaurant workers go since there were so few jobs? Are you saying all the folks collecting free stuff have just recently all ran out and got jobs and the unemployment rate is wrong?
I can only speak for my market. Unemployment is pretty low here already. Of the cooks I know who left the industry a lot got jobs in grocery stores as bakers because they were hiring like crazy, one is trimming trees, one is doing security one is doing pest control, stuff like that.
Part of the issue with unemployment right now is that a lot of businesses went under during the pandemic, so their staff isn't being recalled to work. People who worked for restaurants have no problem finding new jobs but people who worked for other types of businesses who may have more specialized skills are probably having a harder time finding a new job in their field. If you were a projectionist for a movie theater that went out of business for example, those skills don't carry over to restaurants.
I can only speak for my market. Unemployment is pretty low here already. Of the cooks I know who left the industry a lot got jobs in grocery stores as bakers because they were hiring like crazy, one is trimming trees, one is doing security one is doing pest control, stuff like that.
Part of the issue with unemployment right now is that a lot of businesses went under during the pandemic, so their staff isn't being recalled to work. People who worked for restaurants have no problem finding new jobs but people who worked for other types of businesses who may have more specialized skills are probably having a harder time finding a new job in their field.
In other words, anecdotal experience….and there’s plenty of jobs available, folks just aren’t interested in doing them even though they can’t find anything in their fields. I expect they’ll be taking these jobs soon, especially since 25 states have kyboshed the extra free stuff, evictions and repossessions are going to be an option very soon, and folks are going to need to pay their bills.
In other words, anecdotal experience….and there’s plenty of jobs available, folks just aren’t interested in doing them even though they can’t find anything in their fields. I expect they’ll be taking these jobs soon, especially since 25 states have kyboshed the extra free stuff, evictions and repossessions are going to be an option very soon, and folks are going to need to pay their bills.
If you don't have restaurant experience there are only two jobs in a restaurant that you are qualified to do - host and dishwasher. Despite popular perception the other restaurant jobs do require skills and experience, at least to do them well, so unemployed theater projectionists will do nothing to fix the shortage of line cooks or servers. What restaurants need to do to get experienced people with those skills back in the industry is to raise wages and treat them better, which is what they are starting to do.
Are you saying the shortage is the same now as before the pandemic?
No it is worse now because a lot of people who worked in restaurants found jobs in other industries. Everybody I know who worked in restaurants before the pandemic is working again, but a lot of them left the industry.
The unspoken premise behind the argument you are making is that the working class is lazy and would sit around if given the chance. In reality most restaurant people who were laid off started to go crazy with cabin fever and took jobs just to get out of the house and have something to do. Nobody wants to be left scrambling for a job once unemployment runs out. With restaurants desperate to hire now is the time to find the job you want and demand the wage that you want. Everybody in the industry knows this, they want to get locked into the best job possible right now, which is why turnover is also really high. It isn't that there are a million cooks sitting on unemployment, it is that there aren't enough cooks and restaurants that don't pay well are losing the cooks they have because there is intense competition to hire staff between restaurants.
...
People will claim that workers are 'lazy', but that is just a cover for anti-labor sentiment which very strong among Republicans.
They just want whip them back onto the plantation, and any excuse will do.
The reality is more in line with what you are posting here.
I know a guy who worked for years in restaurants, some of the better known restaurants around Chicago. He eventually learned to tend bar and then became a manager for a popular restaurant in the western suburbs.
He got out, he's doing tattoos, which pays a lot more for the time and effort and is a more satisfying a career.
So if wanting a better paying job with more free time and job satisfaction is lazy, then almost everyone is lazy, the rest are stupid.
The fact is we all want more money working less hours, but these Republicans are going to claim we are all lazy on unemployment. They don't want to face reality: people who can get a better paying job right now will take it. Companies that don't want to pay will struggle to find help. The better paying jobs will fill up first, the cheapskates will have to wait for their workers.
People will claim that workers are 'lazy', but that is just a cover for anti-labor sentiment which very strong among Republicans.
They just want whip them back onto the plantation, and any excuse will do.
The reality is more in line with what you are posting here.
I know a guy who worked for years in restaurants, some of the better known restaurants around Chicago. He eventually learned to tend bar and then became a manager for a popular restaurant in the western suburbs.
He got out, he's doing tattoos, which pays a lot more for the time and effort and is a more satisfying a career.
So if wanting a better paying job with more free time and job satisfaction is lazy, then almost everyone is lazy, the rest are stupid.
The fact is we all want more money working less hours, but these Republicans are going to claim we are all lazy on unemployment. They don't want to face reality: people who can get a better paying job right now will take it. Companies that don't want to pay will struggle to find help. The better paying jobs will fill up first, the cheapskates will have to wait for their workers.
Nah, when Sleepy Joe’s free stuff runs out, unemployment will go down. Folks will have to pay their rent and vehicles if they’re paying on one. It’s coming very soon, and 25 states have already kyboshed the extra $300/week which is going away very soon.
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