
A Fast-Food Problem: Where Have All the Teenagers Gone? - cribbles
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/upshot/fast-food-jobs-teenagers-shortage.html
======
lwhalen
I note from the article: "Mr. Kaplow has tried everything he can think of to
find workers, placing Craigslist ads, asking other franchisees for referrals,
seeking to hire people from Subways that have closed."

it does not say anything about 'Mr. Kaplow has tried offering higher wages'.
This relates to an older HN article - "Employers will do almost anything to
hire workers, except pay them more" \-
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17506044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17506044)

~~~
baud147258
Well, there's one example of higher wages in the article:

> Tamra Kennedy, who owns nine Taco John’s franchises in the Midwest, started
> offering $100 as a bonus to new employees who reached 100 hours. She has
> started offering merit increases twice a year, and she pays all employees
> more than the minimum wage.

~~~
HarryHirsch
100 dollars bonus is risible. That's not even 15 hours of federal minimum
wage. Does the landowner not realize that when she goes on the record in the
NY Times?

~~~
mchahn
> 100 dollars bonus is risible

I don't know of any teenager who would laugh at getting an extra $100.

------
carlmr
I find it funny how businesses always complain about not getting the workers.
If it's the other way around they're happy to pay bottom rate wages. So in
this case they just have to spend 15 or $20 or whatever it takes to get
employees.

If they can't pay that then that's the market regulating itself away from too
many fast food restaurants.

$10.93/h is still a pittance if you want to live anywhere near Manhattan.

Supply and demand. It's that simple. And businesses always whine around when
it's not working in their favor. Suck it, close your Subway if it's not
profitable to pay market wages.

~~~
petard
It feels like if a person can't find a job they are to blame, if a company
can't find people the "market" is to blame.

------
imgabe
So they talked about Lower Manhattan and Northern California. This is at least
partially a housing problem. Nobody who works in fast food can afford to live
anywhere near those places.

If you're a teenager and you're living near those areas, your parents are
probably rich enough that they would prefer you to spend more time studying or
doing extracurriculars to pad your college applications rather than getting a
part time job.

~~~
maxerickson
Or the parents assist in finding nicer jobs.

------
schlipity
I feel like this might as well have been titled "Where has all the cheap,
legal labor gone?"

The answer is probably as simple as they aren't offering enough pay or
benefits to attract employees. This is probably an indicator that the average
employee is finally getting a little more power in the Employee/Employer
relationship, at least in the areas where this is true.

I would love for workers to be able to confidently expect to be able to leave
a job that is mistreating them and get a new job right away. As for now, it's
relatively common to be asked to work off the clock, not get paid for
overtime, or work in conditions that are awful as a low-wage worker.

~~~
stnmtn
I don't think the average employee is getting more power. I think it's going
the opposite way

------
gregwtmtno
"Mr. Kaplow has tried everything he can think of to find workers, placing
Craigslist ads, asking other franchisees for referrals, seeking to hire people
from Subways that have closed."

Everything except paying more.

~~~
icebraining
I had the same thought. But they do write that "Fast-food wages began rising
in 2014, and have increased faster than overall wages since."

------
adrianhel
Less young people getting exploited as cheap labor? Seems like a win to me!

~~~
nsb1
I dunno...does anyone really believe that the job they had in high school was
going to be the start of a lifelong career? For most of us, having a job at
that age was more about learning to cope with real life. Learning to work with
others, maybe dealing with customers, and allocating whatever wages you earned
are all important life lessons that are best learned while you have the
support structure of living at home rather than later when it can mean the
difference between rent and homelessness.

~~~
icebraining
But that's fine: today's young adults can't afford their own homes anyway, so
their first job after HS/University still have that support structure.

------
bowlich
If it costs $2,000 to replace an employee, and the award incentive to stay on
is $100. Then I would say the employee is getting screwed out of $1,900.

(If the military can get contractors to run a fast food joint in a war-zone
then I imagine that an employer can get employees to work in NYC.)

------
Svoka
Listened to a podcast on similar topic, Planet Money [1]. Journalists were
exploring why students don't want to take on Summer Jobs anymore. I was
listening to it and it was weird for me to listen why it is such a mystery.
Commodities are getting cheaper every year, and meaningful things, like
college education, housing prices are skyrocketing. What the point to of
getting summer job if only thing you can get with earned money is an extra
drink in a club. I'm not saying that this is always the case, but from my
experience, this is reason why people around me didn't take summer jobs.

[1]
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/06/21/622312015/teen...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/06/21/622312015/teenage-
employment-wasteland)

P.S. I'm not a student for a long time. I teach some kids how to code and
talked with them on this topic.

------
ngngngng
Inability to find workers seems to be a very common issue we have here in
Utah. There are way too many >$15/hr opportunities that don't require
experience or credentials. It's a miracle to keep competent employees at
anything less than that. You can also afford to buy a house here for around
$15 per hour.

------
JustSomeNobody
It is going to be interesting in the next few years. We are starting to see a
lot more push back about wages.

------
perl4ever
I wonder if the underlying problem is that owners are irrational, and the
reason they are irrational is because franchising selects for irrational
people with capital to invest. I'm thinking that even if owners on average
lose money, the company selling franchises can be successful, and as long as
there is a supply of such owners, the industry keeps on keeping on.

------
anothergoogler
> Since 2010, fast-food jobs have grown nearly twice as fast as employment
> over all (sic), contributing to the economic recovery.

That seems like a dubious claim, we're talking about low-paying part-time jobs
with no benefits in a volatile industry.

------
k__
"an industry where cheap labor is an essential component in providing
inexpensive food"

Guess people have better things to do than to feed late stage capitalism.

~~~
dsr_
Every general labor problem like this can be solved by offering more money
until an equilibrium is reached.

If that costs too much to be profitable, the business has an unworkable model.

~~~
scarface74
Unless they have venture capitalists to subsidize them....

------
vinceguidry
Why is the knee-jerk response to industry labor shortages always to pay more?

It's stated in the article that it's been tried. One biz owner stated there
was a $100 bonus in it for anyone who manages to rack up a hundred hours. I
don't know how you were as a teenager but when I was a teen $100 wasn't living
it large, but it was definitely motivating. Plenty say they offer above-
industry wages, so obviously that won't fix the problem by itself.

I believe what's being asked for is an order of magnitude adjustment, and that
would significantly change the economics of the industry. I'll hazard a guess
and say that nobody's going to really like the quick-service restaurants that
manage to turn a profit in this brave new world.

Then again, I've never seen a Chick-Fil-A understaffed. I'd love to see that
become the new normal. _Demolition Man_ got it wrong.

~~~
anothergoogler
If $100 for 100 hours is supposed to be motivating, maybe the business owner
should start out by raising the hourly rate by $1.

~~~
vinceguidry
What makes you think they didn't? The article clearly said they tried. Why
does everyone assume it wasn't tried?

~~~
perl4ever
A $1/hr raise seems like strictly more than $100 for the first 100 hours. It
doesn't make sense that someone would try something and then when it failed,
offer less.

