Robots coming to a store near you.
And while they sit at home demanding that living wage that no one can define, how are they paying their bills? If the answer is because they are collecting unemployment, then the problem isn't a they-aren't-paying-enough problem. It's a government meddling problem. If they aren't going to work and not getting any kind of income replacement, then yes, it would be a work/employer pay relationship problem.
I hope things never go back to normal. "Normal" wasn't working for a lot of people.I know many places are doing this where I live - the amount of people not working is terrible. Fast food places and restaurants closing for an entire day due to no help. Restaurants having an hour or more wait time when there’s not many customers due to little help. It’s so sad for the business owners and so sad for the customers. We don’t go out to eat that often, and when we do want to, we decide not to because the restaurants we want to go to are always an hour+ wait and the parking lot is half full. Hopefully things go back to normal soon for everyone’s benefit.
Robots coming to a store near you.
Most of the restaurants around here are only opening 5 days per week due to short staff and losing out on summer tourist dollars.
We called in our take-out order the other night, showed up at the appointed time and waited another hour for our order and the order was half missing.
Many fast food places are open with window service only and drastically reduced hours.
Three dunkin's near us are only open 6am to noon, window only.
The tourists who are flooding the state are having to buy coolers and food at the grocery stores due to restaurant closures.
We are doing a cross country road trip this summer.
Definitely going to bring a cooler and snacks to carry us over in a pinch.
It's not just fast food places offering sign on bonuses. I work for a software company (project management) and HR is offering $1000 referral bonuses for any available positions. I don't even know of anyone looking right now to be able to refer them!
It goes far deeper than that. The labor force saw a lot of contractions due to:
-Retirements from people who kept giving it "one more year" and the pandemic gave them a push out the door.
-Parents who took on the role of teacher/babysitter while daycares were closed. Now that the families realized they can get by on one income, it takes a lot to get them to return.
-People who used their time off during the pandemic to increase their qualifications
-Retirees who left the workforce because they didn't want to deal with the health risks (Wal-Mart greeters, for example)
IE more jobs for factory robots.Wonderful! More jobs for robot builders!
But does the potential employee receive a bonus if hired?
Yeah, I don't know anyone choosing unemployment over working either.Now that's interesting.
The narrative is that with the added unemployment paying everyone $15/hour to stay home, no one is trying to get back to work.
We talked about this at work, 6 of us and not one of us could say they knew anyone who wasn't working and was staying home. So now my thoughts have changed to, where are all these people who aren't working that everywhere is under staffed?
I encountered my first call of a place saying they couldn't open because of staffing. Mom wanted KFC, I don't like to do the drive-thru, especially a place I don't know their menu. I went to the door and the dining room was closed due to staffing. Drive-thru only. I had no choice but to sit there in my car and study the half menu as I do know they have more than what was listed, just didn't know what it would be called and didn't see it.
The same thing is happening at Wisconsin Dells. Workers were imported from Poland and relied on these works for over 20 years. Many of the resort pools at the Dells are swim at your own risk. Noah's Ark one of the top 10 water parks in the US are at cut hours and days. I think they finally opened more now after the 4th of July.My company has had to import workers from various countries to fill summer positions at beach locations for decades. Very difficult this summer and last. A few locations had to curtail operating hours or even close temporarily due to staff shortages.
Yeah, I don't know anyone choosing unemployment over working either.
I do think there are a lot of factors at play that are creating this problem. My own personal example: I am a teacher and after a difficult year in so many ways, I have chosen to take the summer off from teaching summer school. The pay was not worth the aggravation and my spending was down during the pandemic so I can afford it. Most teachers and support staff felt that way. As a result, they have had to hire a lot of younger, less qualified, people for the summer. My DD18 (fresh out of high school) is working as a paraprofessional in the summer school program for $25 an hour, no nights, no weekends or holidays. Hiring her would have been unheard of just 2 years ago. Because of this she doesn't need to work the ice cream shop job she had originally planned on. Many of her friends are in similar situations, working jobs that they never would have been considered for a couple years ago. There's a real domino affect in play in some of these situations.
I sign on to this 100%. Good for your kids!!!!That's not pandemic. That's teen culture changes that have been happening for at least 10 years.
I've got 3 young adults. 2 are not getting paid to work, but it's because of where they are with their education and not the pandemic. They are leaving the house every morning for shadowing and volunteer activities needed for their college degrees (pharmacy and medical). So they are not working traditional jobs.
Another has taken an internship in her area of study this summer. She used to coach at soccer camps during the summer. She's now working for our Department of Marine Resources doing ecology work.
And before this summer, like yours,, my kids didn't really work much in traditional part time summer jobs.
School gets out in late May and back to school is the first week of August. Then you have AP summer work, athletic and band practices, college visits, SAT and ACT exams, etc. That doesn't leave much time for traditional summer jobs.