Where are all the workers and how are they supporting themselves?

[Dantilla]

Originally Posted by 3rd_gear_Ted

... they know your margins ...

Actually, they don't.
Surprising how many think income=profit. No concept of expenses.
No knowledge that my cost for every employee is almost double what they see on their paycheck.

[GH85Carrera]

We like to go eat breakfast on Sunday mornings at a local place just two miles from out house. They have built a second restaurant, and want to open it. Construction is done, equipment is in, ready to go. They can't find employees to staff it to the levels they require.

I too can't imagine how people are surviving with day to day bills. Eating is required, and I can remember the days of under 50 cents a day for food. Lots of rice, potato soup, and low cost meals.

My parents instilled a work ethic in me. I worked a full time job, shot weddings on Saturdays and filmed football for coaches with a 16mm movie camera in the days before video cameras. Working three jobs I managed to buy my brand new 914 at age 19.

Learning to drag my ass out of bed every single work morning and be at work on time, and earn a paycheck was something I did at an early age.

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by 3rd_gear_Ted

All any business has to do is to offer a "piece of the pie" instead of fixed wages and you would have workers in a heart beat.

Yeah, that's a great idea. Give away a % of a business that you've built up and managed over many years to some slacker who can barely keep it together enough to show up for work every day?

Originally Posted by 3rd_gear_Ted

...they know your margins and want a piece of it

But how many actually deserve "a piece of it" ? Too many don't even deserve the minimum wage they're getting for sleepwalking thru their jobs as it is.

[dw1]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

We like to go eat breakfast on Sunday mornings at a local place just two miles from out house. They have built a second restaurant, and want to open it. Construction is done, equipment is in, ready to go. They can't find employees to staff it to the levels they require.

It is surprising that are using a restaurant to make your point. In most states restaurants are permitted to pay servers significantly below minimum wage because "you can make it up in tips" (which rarely happens) and most employees have little or no medical coverage.

In my experience, it is has also been not uncommon for the support personnel (dishwashers, busboys, etc.) to be recent immigrants because the pay is so small - minimum wage at best. This is not a recent thing, but goes back to at least the 1970's (and historically well before that.)

Quite some time ago I worked in a restaurant and in a warehouse. I would take the warehouse job hands down, as I believe would many others.

[dan88911]

Maybe these folks are surviving/ working as uber, amazon and food delivery jobs.
They make their own hours and get to be out and about. No boss or stupervisor on your back.

[hcoles]

This is a good question. Where are they? I have a good friend - their daughter is a full time teacher and lives with them. Can't afford a place to rent. The other day I went to get gas at a favorite station in Santa Cruz - paper sign on the door - Closed No Workers.

[Gogar]

Sounds like a great deal where an employee would get to share a percentage of profits and not have to share the risk of failure

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by dw1

It is surprising that are using a restaurant to make your point. In most states restaurants are permitted to pay servers significantly below minimum wage because "you can make it up in tips" (which rarely happens) and most employees have little or no medical coverage.

In my experience, it is has also been not uncommon for the support personnel (dishwashers, busboys, etc.) to be recent immigrants because the pay is so small - minimum wage at best. This is not a recent thing, but goes back to at least the 1970's (and historically well before that.)

Quite some time ago I worked in a restaurant and in a warehouse. I would take the warehouse job hands down, as I believe would many others.

If you're making less than min. wage as a server, you either suck or need to find a better place to work. I did it 25 yrs ago, made plenty more than min wage, I wasn't even one of the big earners (the attractive female servers usually were) and it was not an expensive restaurant. Dishwashers are often immigrants because the job requires nothing more than the ability to stand on your feet for a long time. You can do it with bare minimum or even no English ability, you don't interact with customers and it's just a no-skill job. I did it as well and even got a small tip payout each night.

If you figure an avg. tip amount of 15%, it's not hard to do the math to see what kind of rev you need to ring up per shift to make $XX. So if the place is so low priced that there's no chance of your ringing up $1000 in rev. per shift, you need to find a more expensive place to be a server.

[dheinz]

Why does Pennsylvania pay unemployment benefits? The local mall, shopping center,
and big box stores all have help wanted signs at $15 an hour or better.
This area does not have the high cost of living such California or New York city...

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by dw1

It is surprising that are using a restaurant to make your point. In most states restaurants are permitted to pay servers significantly below minimum wage because "you can make it up in tips" (which rarely happens) and most employees have little or no medical coverage.

In my experience, it is has also been not uncommon for the support personnel (dishwashers, busboys, etc.) to be recent immigrants because the pay is so small - minimum wage at best. This is not a recent thing, but goes back to at least the 1970's (and historically well before that.)

Quite some time ago I worked in a restaurant and in a warehouse. I would take the warehouse job hands down, as I believe would many others.

Restaurants, and servers are not a new thing. They have been around all my life. Servers that are worth a crap can make great money. I live in a suburb of Oklahoma City, and it is known as an upscale place. We have one large state university, and one private Christian university, and many of the wait staff I chat with are students getting a degree.

We also love a little Italian restaurant that is right in the middle of town of Main and Broadway. One great waiter likes us as customers since we are not hard to please, and I am a good tipper. He said his room mate for the house they rent is a framing carpenter for new house construction. The waiter is making more money than the construction worker, and he does not have to contend with the outside temperatures, and he get one free meal per day during his shift.

Don't get me wrong, it is not I job I want. But is is one that will never not be needed. It was not a problem for generations of wait staff. Now there is a shortage. It make no logical sense.

[dan88911]

Don't worry soon the illegal immigrants will fill these jobs.

[dw1]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Don't get me wrong, it is not I job I want. But is is one that will never not be needed. It was not a problem for generations of wait staff. Now there is a shortage. It make no logical sense.

No mystery. The lack of medical benefits, the lack of job security, the lack of a predictable steady income, and most of all COVID caused a lot of people in the hospitality industry to realize the downside of that industry and get into other fields.

I personally know of three folks who used to work in restaurants pre-covid and never will again. One is now a bookkeeper and working toward being an accountant, another went to a local county college program during covid and is now a radiology tech, and the other is working on a business degree while working part-time in a warehouse job.

People are moving up the ladder, or just plain pushing themselves - working harder and getting a good education - so they can get better jobs (and filling the job voids left by all the retiring boomers).

[fintstone]

No one liked working hard all day on a crappy job when I was young either, but we all liked to eat and have a roof over our heads...so there was little choice. If one worked hard, they could do well and advance to the point where they had a pretty good life (but it still required employment).

Why work hard for low pay when the government will take money from those that do to give to you? That is the new reality. End income-based social programs and there will be plenty of workers. Close the borders and wages will rise through competition. Simple solutions.

[epbrown]

It's starting to sound like a Monty Python skit in here.

[McLovin]

It’s just one of the many perplexing mysteries science has yet to solve.

[McLovin]

“The question is why?”

[Arizona_928]

Either they're:
-In school (subsidized education)
-In prison (subsidized prisons)
- directly on gov tit
-Living at home (subsidized by the parents) working odd jobs just for gas on the car mommy and daddy bought them. Having insurance paid for by the parents. I have lots of examples of this just dating females in the last decade.


Also. Why work for $15/hr slaving at a fast food joint when Walmart is paying $20/hr starting out. Those jobs are for felons that can't get anything else.... but then.... where are all these felons and lower level society that work these jobs

[red 928]

Where are all the workers and how are they supporting themselves?

trick question

they aren't supporting themselves.
everyone ELSE is doing it for them

[berettafan]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

Actually, they don't.
Surprising how many think income=profit. No concept of expenses.
No knowledge that my cost for every employee is almost double what they see on their paycheck.

agree he is totally out to lunch on that. feels good to think 'yeah, we're sticking it to the man!' but it's incorrect.

[berettafan]

Originally Posted by Gogar

Sounds like a great deal where an employee would get to share a percentage of profits and not have to share the risk of failure

^^^^^

This.