
A Worker Shortage Is Forcing Restaurants to Get Creative - dmm
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/dining/labor-shortage-restaurants-employment.html
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dmm
> Our industry is very much in need of a temporary visa program for the low-
> skilled, essential workers

I think this is interesting because I hear a lot about a shortage of tech
workers and the consensus I hear is that there really isn't a shortage,
employers need to pay more. Or they need to offer training.

But here is another industry facing labor shortages. Is it really a shortage?
My impression of restaurant work is that the kitchen staff get paid less and
work more than the wait staff and there is little room for advancement, other
than starting your own restaurant.

> I think millennials are really focused on quality of life

Ha! As opposed to what? Working really hard for some reason?

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derivagral
With the VC and profit margins of the headliners, asking a tech firm to pay
more "feels normal".

My understanding is that most restaurants aren't in a position to pay much
more; are the urban demographics different enough to support such a thing?

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Thriptic
If you can't afford to pay enough to retain labor, you need to charge more for
your products or give labor equity. If you can't make money doing this (ROI
not good enough if equity is diluted or people won't pay more for what you're
selling) then you should not be in business.

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egypturnash
So I’m just saying, over here in the _other_ Washington, Seattle has raised
the minimum wage. And after a bunch of whining about how it was going to ruin
their margins, restaurants have raised their prices, and everything continues
the same as before. Maybe DC restaurants could, I dunno, raise their prices a
little and pay their staff enough to get by? Nah. It’ll never work.

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twoodfin
How do you think the folks for whom dining represents a significant expense
feel about these raised prices?

Everyone talks about the minimum wage’s effects (or not) on employment, but
I’d be way more concerned with its (potentially very regressive) effects on
prices.

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mauvehaus
I think they can learn how to cook. 2 people can eat pretty darn well for $100
spent on groceries in a week most anywhere in the US. That covers, what, 2 or
3 dinners out at a sit down place? Maybe 5 at a fast casual place? And the
people eating out still need breakfast and lunch.

Dining out is not a necessity. Unless you're one of the rare people without a
kitchen that somebody will inevitably protest about. In which case you'd
better be paying a lot less than market rate for housing with a kitchen to
cover the _totally foreseeable_ expense of eating out all the time.

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friedman23
>I think they can learn how to cook

And all the people that used to eat out learn how to cook and stop eating out.
The restaurants go out of business and the workers with higher minimum wage
are fired.

Good thinking

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jcadam
> And all the people that used to eat out learn how to cook and stop eating
> out. The restaurants go out of business and the workers with higher minimum
> wage are fired.

You're arguing that people should not bother learning how to prepare food for
themselves in order to sustain the restaurant industry.

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friedman23
I'm arguing that specialization benefits everyone and that your misguided
attempt at helping these workers will actually hurt them.

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hkarthik
Seems like they should just raise prices on the food to control demand and
provide additional capital for paying workers. Basic economics 101. What am I
missing here?

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crdoconnor
Restaurant customers are quite sensitive to price increases. This is why
restaurants sometimes reduce the size of meals instead of raising prices.

In any case, the real reason for the article and its complaints about a
"tight" labor market is to lobby for low wage immigration:

"Our industry is very much in need of a temporary visa program for the low-
skilled, essential workers,” said Shannon Meade, the National Restaurant
Association’s director of labor and work force policy. "

Translation : pretty please send cheap labor our way; our profit margins
aren't high enough.

~~~
jmagoon
Yep. Having worked in the restaurant industry, it also means they don't want
to pay healthcare, give sick / vacation time, or even hire enough employees to
cover all shifts. ("Oops, no one is scheduled for tonight, guess you have to
work a double!") It's way easier to exploit temp visa workers who are a missed
shift away from getting deported.

I actually really loved working in a kitchen but it's absurd how bad the labor
conditions are.

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AdamM12
Having worked in the restaurant industry (Bus boy, expo, and server) for 5 yrs
from HS to College to shortly after there has always been these problems.
People think the grass is always greener at another place an will switch jobs
after 2 months, maybe even only a couple weeks, well before they have built up
enough institutional knowledge (menu details in order to effectively sell,
ways to ring up common and edge case special preps, where supplies are in
store, build rapport with frequent guests, etc.) to make them truly effective
at their job and make consistent money. Restaurateurs complaining about their
servers bad service is a failure of management to adequately train (seen this
is action), albeit I've seen long time servers who had plenty of the
institutional knowledge to do their jobs but refuse to do simple things like
pre-bus a table.

Edit: Forgot to mention. This is maybe the 2nd or 3rd article where I've read
that towns/industries have looked to recruit out of prison/jail. This imo is a
good thing.

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chrischen
I was disappointed none of the creative ways included using robots or machines
like in Japan.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
For jobs that don't require years of training, you really don't have "worker
shortages". If you pay more, you will find people willing to work. I have come
to see "worker shortage" as shorthand for businesses saying "we would like to
pay people less" and advocating some sort of (typically government)
intervention to drive up the supply of labor and thereby decrease wages (in
this case allow more temporary immigrant workers who can more easily be taken
advantage of and paid less).

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pg_bot
Here is a mix of things likely to when there is a shift in the economic
equilibrium for labor. This is true for all industries and not just the
restaurant industry.

\- Increase wages/benefits of workers (increased prices for customers)

\- Substitute capital for labor (buy more machinery)

\- Increase the supply of workers by training new people

\- Close unprofitable businesses

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marak830
"The more experienced workers, she said, are attracted to the increasing
number of Washington restaurants with high-profile chefs, leaving midlevel
establishments like hers struggling with inexperienced and often fickle help."

That's because chefs and restaurants like me actually: pay over minimum, train
staff and actually treat them like humans. Not like cattle or worse.

One of my (admitably) many pet peeves in this industry is "restaurants"
complaining that they can't get top talent for peanuts, and wondering why, for
example, my place is full while theirs struggles to meet basic cost.

Yeah having a 200 seat, cater to everyone with super low prices('it attracts
customers!') seems like a great idea, until they actually try it.

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goda90
This may be a local phenomenon caused by bad ownership or management, but the
fast food restaurants near me have really been struggling to stay well
staffed, resulting in them no longer being "fast". It seems like some of them
are propped up by the brand and cheap prices instead of acceptable service. I
wonder if there is a reduction in the number of teens and college students
seeking out these kinds of jobs. Maybe teens just don't get jobs anymore, and
college students don't have time to work for a wage that'll barely cover their
living expenses

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justherefortart
Try profit sharing.

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vorpalhex
We had a restaurant near us that ran as a co-op. The food was good, the
service was OK (it was very self-serve, which was fine, but it was
communicated poorly...), but they repeatedly could not stay afloat or manage a
budget over a long time period.

That's obviously just an anecdotal example, but I don't know of any co-ops
aside from REI that seem to really stick around and do well longterm.

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rootedbox
Everyone is delaying the inevitable.. Pay more to workers.. raise prices..
some folks will eat out less.

20 years ago.. eating out was not a daily thing.

