
Restaurants Are Scrambling for Cheap Labor in 2019 - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/restaurants-are-scrambling-for-cheap-labor-in-2019
======
iso1337
I feel like restaurant culture could change to be more efficient. Some
observations from visiting Asia or eating out in general:

In Korea, there is a button on every table you can press to get the attention
of waitstaff. No more inefficient hoping to catch eye contact when they walk
by.

A lot of places now make you walk up to a register and pay as you leave. No
more having the waitstaff make 2-3 trips to your table just so you can sign.

Having iPads or something for ordering is another step, but may take longer to
recoup those initial investments.

Focus only on a few speciality dishes, rather than offering 200 items.

Edit: there’s also the automat, which was in fashion in the early 1900s in
America, I believe. There was the Eatsa chain but it folded, apparently due to
“expanding too fast.”

~~~
dominotw
how about ordering directly to the kitchen from the table via ipad. I usually
don't have any questions for the waiters.

~~~
iso1337
I have personally seen this in some airports. The problem was they were fixed
in place in front of you and constantly blared ads.

At some restaurants near me, the waitstaff now hand you an iPad instead of a
menu. Once we got over the clunky UI, it made ordering a lot more efficient.

I imagine you could embed a short 15s video to explain what the dish is (if
needed).

~~~
HillRat
The United terminal at EWR — ground zero for the “iPad at every seat” concept
— basically feels like you’re trapped in a combination of a high-security
video poker casino and the “Minority Report” retinal-scanning advertising
scene, with the added insult of a CBGB-branded craft cocktail bar.

Having said that, it’s still the best terminal you’ll find in Newark, so ...
eh.

~~~
wenc
OTG is the company behind the iPad concept [1], and there are large
installations at IAH, YYZ, LGA, etc.

I don't know, they're ok. I wouldn't use the iPads to surf but they're a great
food ordering tool. The one advantage is that the seats at these iPad stations
are usually very comfy. They also free you up from having to look for seating
at a busy food court. I was once able to order Popeye's from several gates
away where things were quieter, and my food was brought to me.

[1]
[https://www.macworld.com/article/1167138/ipad_installations_...](https://www.macworld.com/article/1167138/ipad_installations_at_airports_take_some_of_the_stress_out_of_traveling.html)

~~~
xfitm3
LGA has an area that looks like a sit down restaurant with the ipads. I found
it to be quite pleasant. However, if I just want to sit and relax I don’t want
the ipad in front of me.

------
SpikeDad
I was shocked last year when I spent some time in Canada over how many
restaurants had mobile pay devices that the server brought over so you could
pay at the table.

In my town (Central PA) only 1 restaurant had this technology and they stopped
using it for some unknown reason.

Sadly the only really automated ordering system in place is at Applebees and
at McDonalds. You can order and pay 100% at your table. Unfortunately they can
only bring you insta-food so not a good trade off IMHO.

Who'da thunk that if you are hostile to immigration (or even undocumented
workers) you'd find the low level jobs in the US wanting for labor. I thought
these were AMERICAN jobs. Sigh.

~~~
wvenable
I'd say 99% of all restaurants in Canada have mobile pay devices. All our
credit/debit cards are chip and pin, so the server cannot walk off with your
card and run through the payment themselves as that won't work.

I'm shocked whenever I go to the US and servers walk off with my card!
Canadian cards to chip and pin in the US as well and some retailers are
confused when their terminals ask for the pin.

------
chriselles
What I’m seeing down here in NZ/Australia are repeated anecdotal cases of
restaurants being charged with abusing immigrant(mostly legal and some illegal
overstayer) employees.

The abuse typically involves underpayment in the form of fixed income and
unlimited hours, or required overtime without additional pay as per employment
law.

More recently, I’ve become aware of two major fast food franchises with a
cheap labour scam so common it must be known or knowingly ignored by the
franchisors(1 in Aus, 1 in NZ).

It is a scheme where immigrants are sponsored for work visas in entry level
exempt fast food management jobs working unlimited hours for $60k salary a
year.

The problem is the immigrants pay back $60k thru seperate channels for the
opportunity, effectively becoming indentured servants for 1 year.

That is so incredibly unethical and immoral, if not illegal(unsure about that,
but questionable quasi-legal at best).

I can understand, if not sympathize, with how and why this has come about.

Looking in from the outside, the fast food and quick casual restaurant
industry is ruthlessly competitive and cannibalistic.

Restaurant owners/franchisees and franchisors would be well aware of such
financial subsidy benefitting directly(franchisee bottom line) &
indirectly(franchisor P&L leverage to push for higher reinvestment/co-
marketing).

Just because immigrants are willing/able to agree to a fixed term indentured
servitude, doesn’t make it ok.

I’m a legal immigrant myself and I have a legal immigrant starting his first
day tomorrow(after a 6 month search).

We only had the opportunity to employ him after he was poorly treated(due to
leveraging him with implied threats with his work visa) here in NZ and after
he was poorly treated in Qatar and Bahrain previously.

~~~
beerlord
The solution is to become stricter on immigration. In Australia this would
take the form of disallowing migrants on Student visas from working. Hundreds
of thousands of people are coming to Australia yearly to work, and for many
$10/hour is a fortune compared to what they would make back home, but an
illegal wage in Australia.

~~~
brokenmachine
The government are the ones who came up with this awesome indentured servitude
scheme, I doubt they'll be motivated to do more to prevent it.

"Job creators".

------
esotericn
Restaurants are interesting, because the serving experience is a really
important part of the encounter. Almost all of it, in fact.

It's a social experience, not a utilitarian 'fuel me up' encounter.

If you cut back on that, the whole product is less valuable, so cheap labour
is really important. If it gets too expensive, 'average' people won't go any
more.

You could have the best quality food in the world, but if it's ordered via a
McDonalds' style kiosk and comes around on a conveyor belt to a plastic,
unmade table, most would probably not bother (at the price a "restaurant"
would charge, anyway).

In the UK we have Wetherspoons' pubs. There's an app you can use to order food
to a table. It's great and I use it often. But it's low-end food that does the
job.

At a "real" restaurant I want the lighting, the waiter, the wine glasses, the
atmosphere.

Without that, well, 40+ quid goes a _long_ way in the supermarket.

~~~
wenc
> the serving experience is a really important part of the encounter. Almost
> all of it, in fact.

For me, it's not so much the serving experience, but the experience of eating
with and around others in a "third place".

I did a little thought experiment: would I prefer to eat with a restaurant
full of people and 1-2 mediocre servers, or be lavishly served by impeccably
trained waitstaff in a restaurant with only a few patrons?

I concluded that the former would be my preference every time. I figured my
interaction with servers is typically less than 5 minutes in duration, but my
interaction with the restaurant environment is often about 1-2 hours.

~~~
esotericn
It's a balance though, right?

The limiting case would be McDonald's.

Which has it's place, but is hardly a place to go for a social occasion.

~~~
wenc
You're right of course. No service would definitely diminish the experience,
especially if one is dining with family or significant other. I wouldn't take
my significant other to an automat for a date...

But in my opinion (and it's just me -- I do see your point of view and it does
make sense to me), service itself is only a small part of the experience. I
just got back from dinner at a sit-down Indian restaurant where service was
minimal but the food was amazing. I had a good time. My expectations may be
cultural however. Most Asian restaurants have minimal service, and I usually
hardly notice if the food's good. There's still service in a sense (the
busboys bring out the food) but interaction is minimal.

All that said, I still want humans in the picture...

p.s. this is an aside and has nothing to do with your observations, but there
is one McDonald's where it wouldn't be inconceivable to go for a social
occasion: the McDonald's HQ in Chicago, where they serve an international
menu. Interestingly, though you order on a touch-screen, bussers bring out the
food to you at your table, like at a restaurant.

------
joezydeco
I believe the hospitality industry is in even worse shape.

I just got back from a resort in the US that was probably the worst trip I've
ever had. It was high season, so prices were insanely higher than the rest of
the year. But every single section of the hotel (housekeeping, engineering,
front desk) and F&B (servers, bartenders, bus staff) was insanely
understaffed. People were frustrated and downright angry at the staff and,
eventually, at each other.

We're at this tipping where something has to give. We're at or nearly at full
employment and everyone is happy to spend money again...but wages won't budge.

I could also talk about other sectors like retail. Have you been in a Target
or Wal-Mart lately? Even stores like Target, which are usually immaculate and
fully stocked all the time have large empty spaces on the shelves and entire
classes of items are short or missing.

 _Where do we go from here?_

~~~
iso1337
Some ideas:

European style: Higher prices, shorter hours.

Japanese style: more automation, vending machines for everything.

Anecdotally, I haven’t seen those issues you mention with retail.

Fundamentally the problem is that the price people are willing to pay won’t
support the required number of people at such “high” wages. Either the price
has to go up or the experience has to become cheaper.

Or you just fly overseas to Mexico and enjoy much cheaper labor at Cancun or
Cabos. Every time I look at resorts in Hawaii I conclude that I should just go
to Mexico instead.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
You should just open the border with Mexico :)

