Labor shortage prompting restaurants to cancel Christmas Party bookings?

[NotUrsula]

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.

It was $23/hr to start, with retention step increases every six months. I didn't want to ask him exactly what he makes, but he's been one of our regular gas guys for several years, so I'm guessing he makes somewhere close to $40/hr by now. (And as I said, more power to him; that's a job not everyone has the strength and attention to detail that doing the work safely demands.)

 

[Colleen27]

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

Fair enough. I've been shocked at how quickly places have resumed draconian attendance policies, both workplaces and schools. Like, we're still supposed to be staying home if we're sick, right? But most employers and schools are answering that with a resounding "no"; we're right back to the pay-to-be-sick rules about needing a doctor's note or risking firing/failure. I can certainly see how people who might have more options than they did before, whether in terms of just not working, piecing together an income in the gig economy, or working from home wouldn't want to go back to work in public-facing positions in the current climate.

And you're probably right about things being under reported among middle aged workers. Not deaths, necessarily - those records are pretty well kept - but we really don't do anything to keep track of long-term illness other than tracking disability claims, so a lot of lower-level chronic covid and overall drop in fitness/endurance that might make a job like waiting tables difficult/impossible wouldn't be counted at all.