Labor shortage prompting restaurants to cancel Christmas Party bookings?

[Colleen27]

I find it amazing how many restaurants are still struggling with staffing issues.

Did that many people leave the workforce? Or did that many people move on to non restaurant jobs? Are people less willing to work excessive hours? Is it about pay? If so where are the people working that pays more? Are those places overstaffed? Is there something else? Is it a combination of several reasons?

Sunday I tried to grab a quick sandwich at Jersey Mike's but found they were only open for online orders and then today a local lunch place I went to is now closed on Tuesdays due to staffing issues according to the sign on the door.

Even with the (slightly, in my area) higher wages restaurants are paying, the continued problems with getting childcare and the high price of commuting is keeping a lot of workers out of lower-wage jobs, and higher supply costs are eating into profit margins so it is less attractive to try to operate at full capacity on slower days or via less popular/more labor intensive service methods (like dine in as opposed to carry out). But there's also something else going on at the same time with so-called "ghost" jobs - help wanted signs at employers who aren't actively hiring - and businesses making the calculated decision that it is less costly to limit service for a while and expand again when the labor market weakens than to set the precedent of higher pay to be fully staffed now. Pretty much every business in my community has help wanted signs up but most aren't calling applicants back, and about half have either shortened their hours or started closing on days they used to be open.

And to bring it back to the topic, the restaurants around me are taking private party bookings but posting that the restaurant will be closed on XX date for a private event rather than trying to handle both the private party and normal restaurant volume. Which probably means smaller organizations are going to have a harder time booking holiday parties than they normally would, because I assume there's a critical mass needed to make a private event worth foregoing the usual dining traffic.

 

[kdonnel]

Even with the (slightly, in my area) higher wages restaurants are paying, the continued problems with getting childcare and the high price of commuting is keeping a lot of workers out of lower-wage jobs

So you think a lot of people are just choosing to not work at all?

It has often been said that people should look at the whole picture to decide how much money they are really making when work related expenses are counted.

Have that many people finally done the math and found that they were netting very little while working?

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

So you think a lot of people are just choosing to not work at all?

It has often been said that people should look at the whole picture to decide how much money they are really making when work related expenses are counted.

Have that many people finally done the math and found that they were netting very little while working?

I don't think it was that they did the math as much as they were forced to change. Daycares and schools suddenly didn't exist during the pandemic and households had to shift to cover those responsibilities. Some adjusted to the lower household income and realized it doesn't make sense to go back into the workforce.

Likely that many of these households could have done this years ago but were resistant because it's a huge change in their daily lives. The pandemic ripped that band-aid off.

 

[tvguy]

So you think a lot of people are just choosing to not work at all?

It has often been said that people should look at the whole picture to decide how much money they are really making when work related expenses are counted.

Have that many people finally done the math and found that they were netting very little while working?

Could be. But every time someone tries to identify a specific reason, the facts just don't support it.

Some argued pandemic unemployment benefits were too generous. In my case I was furloughed for a week, and made more in benefits than I would have made working. And 2020 was an election year with huge ad revenue for TV stations, and my employer ended up giving us all a weeks pay as a pandemic bonus in an effort to reduce their tax liability. Those benefit programs have long since expired, and the people who benefited from them have not returned to the work force, so that clearly isn't the reason.

Some argued pandemic business grants were too generous. My neighbor is a contractor and took advantage of one to keep his 6 employees on the payroll. Fast forward, he faced a huge tax liability on that money that reduced his profits on a grim year, and his employees did the math, they would have made more money in unemployment benefits than working. So a lose, lose. So that isn't the reason.

Only argument that seems to hold water, these workers just vanished into thin air.

 

[DLgal]

So you think a lot of people are just choosing to not work at all?

It has often been said that people should look at the whole picture to decide how much money they are really making when work related expenses are counted.

Have that many people finally done the math and found that they were netting very little while working?

Yeah, maybe they have. We did this calculation 18 years ago before my oldest son was born and made the decision for me to be a SAHM because otherwise, I'd simply be working to pay for childcare, gas, work clothes, food, etc. Not to mention, after taxes, my pay would have been not even close to worth it. I didn't have a "career" per se, so it was an easy decision to just stay home. It's worked out. I feel like a lot of people learned this during the pandemic with forced layoffs...having one parent home 24/7 is a huge savings when you have kids in need of childcare.

 

[greeneyedchick]

Even with the (slightly, in my area) higher wages restaurants are paying, the continued problems with getting childcare and the high price of commuting is keeping a lot of workers out of lower-wage jobs, and higher supply costs are eating into profit margins so it is less attractive to try to operate at full capacity on slower days or via less popular/more labor intensive service methods (like dine in as opposed to carry out). But there's also something else going on at the same time with so-called "ghost" jobs - help wanted signs at employers who aren't actively hiring - and businesses making the calculated decision that it is less costly to limit service for a while and expand again when the labor market weakens than to set the precedent of higher pay to be fully staffed now. Pretty much every business in my community has help wanted signs up but most aren't calling applicants back, and about half have either shortened their hours or started closing on days they used to be open.

And to bring it back to the topic, the restaurants around me are taking private party bookings but posting that the restaurant will be closed on XX date for a private event rather than trying to handle both the private party and normal restaurant volume. Which probably means smaller organizations are going to have a harder time booking holiday parties than they normally would, because I assume there's a critical mass needed to make a private event worth foregoing the usual dining traffic.

Yes, I suspect the same. I live near Orlando and the restaurants barely closed down. I haven't heard of big parties being cancelled. But a lot of people suspect that the restaurants are using the labor shortage as an excuse. On my local NextDoor site there are a bunch of teens who have applied to the many fast food places, stores and restaurants and no one even calls them back for interviews. These kids want to work. Part of the reason is that places don't want to hire kids under 18 because they can only work limited hours. But the other prevailing theory is that the restaurants don't want to pay, so they are posting hiring signs to make it look like a shortage without any intention of hiring.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Are you talking about prescribing opioids? There is a very good reason that doctors aren't giving those things out easily anymore. So many lives have been ruined by those drugs and a lot of them started out with a prescription for "back pain" or something similar.

While I do think it did happen I sincerely doubt that the entire drug problem in the US and all the homeless substance abusers started out as well balanced people who were injured, had pain management and then stumbled into a 50 a day habit because this is the current narrative.

I do think some medicines are more dangerous than others but just like not all drinkers are alcoholics, not all people who need pain medicine will be addicts.

This all started with a very particular medication that was allowed to literally flood the US without limit and that was the jumping off argument to ban everything, expect one that is smoked which miraculously became legalized. When I think on it it's just bizarre that the conclusion was to ban everything and replace with a bunch of black box warning medications that run 1-2K a month which make quite a lot of loot.

I really do expect that if everyday hard working on your feet and put your back into it laborers who moved to Social Security Disability or Unemployment recently were to be polled it would be revealed that pain has a lot to do with new changes in what people will or will not risk and how far they will push themselves.

Nowadays if you hurt yourself you are just down for the count and most people simply can't afford the downtime, that's all there is to it, so they simply dropped out of the high risk of injury labor market and are seeking whatever else is available.

 

[Colleen27]

So you think a lot of people are just choosing to not work at all?

It has often been said that people should look at the whole picture to decide how much money they are really making when work related expenses are counted.

Have that many people finally done the math and found that they were netting very little while working?

I think so, yes. My social circle is very much "on the bubble", financially, as far as having a SAH parent. Those who have one stretched to do so, and those who didn't often wished they could but felt it was too risky financially. A LOT of my mom-friends who left their jobs when daycares and schools closed or when they felt the risks of sending their kids into a group setting in a pandemic were too great either haven't gone back to work or have transitioned into to the so-called gig economy to have more flexibility. Most of them wanted more time at home or stressed about the constant juggling of work and parenting anyway but were uncertain about taking that big step of quitting. Once the pandemic forced it, they decided they didn't want to go back to the balancing act. These are mostly women, mostly who have jobs not careers or careers that were clearly second-fiddle to a higher-earning husband, and as I said some are working in some capacity - substitute teaching, shopping for one of the delivery services, tutoring or teaching an instrument, selling crafts on Etsy and at shows - but many have decided not to go back to punching a clock in a restaurant, retail, or lower-level office/medical role. And there is probably some blame to lay at the feet of the pandemic unemployment; I know quite a few people who used it to pay off debt or build up a bigger cushion than they could save while working, which helped to enable them to remain out of the workforce now. I also know a handful of people, again mostly women, who have elder care responsibilities now that they didn't have at the start of the pandemic, some related to covid and some not, and who don't plan to return to work as long as that is the case.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

While I do think it did happen I sincerely doubt that the entire drug problem in the US and all the homeless substance abusers started out as well balanced people who were injured, had pain management and then stumbled into a 50 a day habit because this is the current narrative.

I do think some medicines are more dangerous than others but just like not all drinkers are alcoholics, not all people who need pain medicine will be addicts.

The "entire drug problem in the US" is not something I ever argued. Prescription pain medications are one of the many entry paths to opioid addiction and something that we have thankfully clamped down on in recent years. Getting 10 Oxy's for a filling was not something that should have ever happened.

This all started with a very particular medication that was allowed to literally flood the US without limit and that was the jumping off argument to ban everything, expect one that is smoked which miraculously became legalized. When I think on it it's just bizarre that the conclusion was to ban everything and replace with a bunch of black box warning medications that run 1-2K a month which make quite a lot of loot.

I'm not sure I follow here as the synthetic opiate prescriptions were a 90s-early 2010s thing and most drugs were illegal long before that. Marijuana legalization is a recent thing but that is not in the same ballpark as opioids when it comes to addiction potential. And the opioids are not illegal to prescribe currently, just not given out as easily.

I really do expect that if everyday hard working on your feet and put your back into it laborers who moved to Social Security Disability or Unemployment recently were to be polled it would be revealed that pain has a lot to do with new changes in what people will or will not risk and how far they will push themselves.

Nowadays if you hurt yourself you are just down for the count and most people simply can't afford the downtime, that's all there is to it, so they simply dropped out of the high risk of injury labor market and are seeking whatever else is available.

If the only way a job is sustainable is long term doses of highly addictive pain medications employers should figure out a better way to get that job done. I work in manufacturing and we spend a lot of time on ergo, lift assists, rotating work assignments, etc to keep our workers safe and healthy long term.

We also don't seem to have the labor shortage issues that some of the other manufacturers in our area have.

 

[little tess]

I wonder what percentage of adult covid deaths involved the working public? Could that be a significant part of the reason the types of jobs we're discussing are low in applicants?

 

[Colleen27]

While I do think it did happen I sincerely doubt that the entire drug problem in the US and all the homeless substance abusers started out as well balanced people who were injured, had pain management and then stumbled into a 50 a day habit because this is the current narrative.

I do think some medicines are more dangerous than others but just like not all drinkers are alcoholics, not all people who need pain medicine will be addicts.

This all started with a very particular medication that was allowed to literally flood the US without limit and that was the jumping off argument to ban everything, expect one that is smoked which miraculously became legalized. When I think on it it's just bizarre that the conclusion was to ban everything and replace with a bunch of black box warning medications that run 1-2K a month which make quite a lot of loot.

I really do expect that if everyday hard working on your feet and put your back into it laborers who moved to Social Security Disability or Unemployment recently were to be polled it would be revealed that pain has a lot to do with new changes in what people will or will not risk and how far they will push themselves.

Nowadays if you hurt yourself you are just down for the count and most people simply can't afford the downtime, that's all there is to it, so they simply dropped out of the high risk of injury labor market and are seeking whatever else is available.

No one suggested it was a cause of the entire drug problem, but a whole lot of addicts and overdose victims have that same story - worker in construction, landscaping, or some other physical field got basically a bottomless prescription of opioids after an injury that ultimately put him (and in my experience this is a very gendered problem - for every one female addict I know, there are 4 or 5 male ones) into a cycle of use, rehab, recovery, relapse and around and around again. Then fentanyl came on the scene and started killing them on the relapse stage of the cycle.

Do I think there could have been a better approach to cracking down? Absolutely. It doesn't seem like it should be that difficult of a proposition to close or restrict the shady clinics that hand out pills like Halloween candy while allowing doctors with responsible, well-rounded practices to continue to offer adequate pain management to their patients. But I also know that gets complicated when you throw in the real-world variables like access to care; a lot of those shady clinics are the places where an uninsured or underinsured blue collar guy can get treatment, pills are sometimes given out not because the patient is drug seeking but because he can't afford the physical therapy or surgical repairs that would address the cause of his pain, etc. And I agree with you that pain is likely a big motivator for those who have moved from the workforce/unemployment on to social security or disability, but my bleeding heart just can't get too worked up about people choosing that over day-in, day-out pain to get a paycheck.

I wonder what percentage of adult covid deaths involved the working public? Could that be a significant part of the reason the types of jobs we're discussing are low in applicants?

Doubtful, given the demographics of the deaths. Fully 1/4 of covid deaths have been in people 85+, roughly another quarter in the 75-84 category, and nearly another quarter among 65-74. Even if you account for the fact that 65-74 isn't entirely into retirement, it is unlikely that they account for a significant loss of workers.

Also, even if every one of the slightly more than 1 million covid deaths in the US was a working-aged adult, that would account for only 0.65% of the total workforce.

 

[prairie_girl]

So you think a lot of people are just choosing to not work at all?

It has often been said that people should look at the whole picture to decide how much money they are really making when work related expenses are counted.

Have that many people finally done the math and found that they were netting very little while working?

I think it may be a combination of that, plus people realizing that they can be a little more choosy, and be paid what they are worth.

I work in a wfh call centre. It’s what I’ve done for 20+ years with various companies; usually having to be on site to work. They notoriously didn’t pay well, but it paid the bills.

There has been an uptick in the past few years of companies that have switched to wfh. It works for them, because they can downsize their building to save on rent and utilities. It works for us because we now can be home.

I don’t have to worry about child care, I don’t have to worry about a commute, I don’t have to worry about maintaining a work wardrobe.

Why would I accept a job that pays minimum, when we’re in demand now and can be choosy? I won’t let customers yell at me for $13.60 a hour (current minimum wage) which I have had to in the past, but I sure will for $20 an hour, which is what I do now.

 

[kdonnel]

I think it may be a combination of that, plus people realizing that they can be a little more choosy, and be paid what they are worth.

I work in a wfh call centre. It’s what I’ve done for 20+ years with various companies; usually having to be on site to work. They notoriously didn’t pay well, but it paid the bills.

There has been an uptick in the past few years of companies that have switched to wfh. It works for them, because they can downsize their building to save on rent and utilities. It works for us because we now can be home.

I don’t have to worry about child care, I don’t have to worry about a commute, I don’t have to worry about maintaining a work wardrobe.

Why would I accept a job that pays minimum, when we’re in demand now and can be choosy? I won’t let customers yell at me for $11.60 a hour (current minimum wage) which I have had to in the past, but I sure will for $20 an hour, which is what I do now.

I had not thought about the shift to wfh in various industries opening up more options. That does sound like a potential contributor to the restaurant labor shortage.

 

[prairie_girl]

I had not thought about the shift to wfh in various industries opening up more options. That does sound like a potential contributor to the restaurant labor shortage.

I wasn’t necessarily suggesting it’s where all the ex restaurant staff has gone, but more as a reason why they may not be wanting to work low paying jobs anymore.

 

[MillauFr]

Could be. But every time someone tries to identify a specific reason, the facts just don't support it.

Some argued pandemic unemployment benefits were too generous. In my case I was furloughed for a week, and made more in benefits than I would have made working. And 2020 was an election year with huge ad revenue for TV stations, and my employer ended up giving us all a weeks pay as a pandemic bonus in an effort to reduce their tax liability. Those benefit programs have long since expired, and the people who benefited from them have not returned to the work force, so that clearly isn't the reason.

Some argued pandemic business grants were too generous. My neighbor is a contractor and took advantage of one to keep his 6 employees on the payroll. Fast forward, he faced a huge tax liability on that money that reduced his profits on a grim year, and his employees did the math, they would have made more money in unemployment benefits than working. So a lose, lose. So that isn't the reason.

Only argument that seems to hold water, these workers just vanished into thin air.

Child care is a real issue. My coworker felt like he hit the lottery when he was able to get a spot for his son in daycare. The $2,600 A month didn't bother him at all. Unless you were making $50 an hour I'm not sure why you would bother working.

 

[tvguy]

Just got an e-mail from one of our members who ate at the restaurant tonight. Pretty slim staffing so a long wait, and they are only using about half the tables. And while they still do to go, they don't take phone orders. You have to come in, order your food at the bar, and wait.

 

[little tess]

No one suggested it was a cause of the entire drug problem, but a whole lot of addicts and overdose victims have that same story - worker in construction, landscaping, or some other physical field got basically a bottomless prescription of opioids after an injury that ultimately put him (and in my experience this is a very gendered problem - for every one female addict I know, there are 4 or 5 male ones) into a cycle of use, rehab, recovery, relapse and around and around again. Then fentanyl came on the scene and started killing them on the relapse stage of the cycle.

Do I think there could have been a better approach to cracking down? Absolutely. It doesn't seem like it should be that difficult of a proposition to close or restrict the shady clinics that hand out pills like Halloween candy while allowing doctors with responsible, well-rounded practices to continue to offer adequate pain management to their patients. But I also know that gets complicated when you throw in the real-world variables like access to care; a lot of those shady clinics are the places where an uninsured or underinsured blue collar guy can get treatment, pills are sometimes given out not because the patient is drug seeking but because he can't afford the physical therapy or surgical repairs that would address the cause of his pain, etc. And I agree with you that pain is likely a big motivator for those who have moved from the workforce/unemployment on to social security or disability, but my bleeding heart just can't get too worked up about people choosing that over day-in, day-out pain to get a paycheck.



Doubtful, given the demographics of the deaths. Fully 1/4 of covid deaths have been in people 85+, roughly another quarter in the 75-84 category, and nearly another quarter among 65-74. Even if you account for the fact that 65-74 isn't entirely into retirement, it is unlikely that they account for a significant loss of workers.

Also, even if every one of the slightly more than 1 million covid deaths in the US was a working-aged adult, that would account for only 0.65% of the total workforce.

Well, we're not talking about the total workforce. Just the generally lower paid ones like restaurant workers who are often uninsured and can't afford to miss work for a sniffle, fever, cough, muscle ache, etc. Also, I wonder if morbitity in the middle age groups 40, 50, 60 of laborers .aren't under reported. That's all

 

[NotUrsula]

I think it's a little bit of all of those factors, but if I had to pick the one that is driving the bus, I'd say that the shortage of restaurant workers is largely fictional. I think that restaurants are exaggerating the labor shortage as a way of maximizing profit in an era of surging supply costs. They are deliberately understaffing and blaming the poor level of service on this mysterious shortage, knowing that customers are much more willing to forgive substandard service when the restaurant can claim its beyond their control.

I know a lot of young people with little experience who would be more than happy to get restaurant jobs, but they apply and apply and never get so much as a call-back. Very few places using this explanation are the sort of spots with Michelin stars; they are just ordinary chain shops for the most part, and your average older teen can definitely handle that work. The truth is that most of those businesses are deliberately not trying very hard to hire new people.

I recently had a conversation with an industrial gas-delivery tech about how bad the shortage is in that job even though they pay $23/hr. Him I believed, because very few people have the driving certifications for the job, let alone the nerve; that work is very heavy and pretty insanely dangerous, to boot.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

I recently had a conversation with an industrial gas-delivery tech about how bad the shortage is in that job even though they pay $23/hr. Him I believed, because very few people have the driving certifications for the job, let alone the nerve; that work is very heavy and pretty insanely dangerous, to boot.

I'd be curious if their wages have kept up with inflation. I feel like a lot of times I hear things like this the person I'm talking to references how they started at $15/hr in 1995 so they feel $23/hr is a lot of money... but it should be a little over $29/hr if they kept pace with inflation since 1995.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Well, I can't speak to restaurant staffing for holiday parties specifically, but overall the October jobs report was just released and as a nation we're still down one million hospitality workers....in comparison to the quarter before the pandemic.