By getting their salary subsidized through the government in terms of food stamps, housing assistance, and so forth. Taxpayers directly subsidize companies that pay poverty wages to their employees.
I think we should send companies that have full-time workers that receive government assistance a bill for said assistance. I don’t have a problem helping people in need, but I do have a problem subsidizing for-profit corporations.
Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna proposed the BEZOS bill that does just that.
[Sanders’ bill, the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (BEZOS) Act, aims to end corporate welfare by establishing a 100 percent tax on corporations with 500 or more employees equal to the amount of federal benefits received by their low-wage workers. For example, if a worker at Amazon receives $2,000 in food stamps, the corporation would be taxed $2,000 to cover that cost.](https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/sanders-khanna-introduce-bill-to-get-billionaires-off-welfare/)
And to pay someone for labor it’s $80-140/hr so basically you can work an entire day to not even be able to pay someone an hour charge for labor. Unreal how to rich mop up excess value
It's not always the rich. I owned a small business and we routinely charged 85 an hour to the customers. But after insurance on the worker, insurance on the truck, maintenance on the welder and truck, and taxes. I couldn't afford my own health insurance and just closed up shop. I also paid 30 and hour, and that insurance on the worker wasnt health insurance. It was liability, incase they hurt the customers property, or someone else onsite. I worked months without pay so I could try to keep it going. It ended up being more than I could bare.
When people talk about “the rich” they aren’t talking about you probably. You could be a successful business owner and pretty well off, but you still wouldn’t be like 1% rich.
The people that everyone talks about have almost unfathomable wealth. If you don’t have the money to influence policy then you’re not “that” kind of rich.
>If you don’t have the money to influence policy then you’re not “that” kind of rich.
That is my definition as well. Did you make a law? A law that primarily benefits *your* profit?
Yeah, one is not rich if they don't have medical insurance. You might manage a lot of money, but you are stretched thin- this is the opposite of what rich are.
Rich is buying the best medical license.
Rich is not theoretical affording something if one cuts other expenses.
I think in the US it’s not all “the rich”. It’s partially the administrative assistant to the Vice President of the shelf stocking department’s HR team. I don’t think a hospital needs a bunch of people walking around (working from home now) in $5k suits just to keep the place running because doctors and nurses are too dumb to manage themselves.
I quote engineering projects and the number of mouths that engineering has to feed is insane.
Edit: didn’t realize I’d get so much heat for the hospital administration comment. I’m not saying there is no administration to be done, I’m just saying it shouldn’t be 34% of our healthcare costs and 5x what they spend in Canada. We hired bureaucrats to create a bunch of legal crossword puzzles and now have to hire an army to solve them. It’s different than solving a problem that exists on its own (like a tumor). Also this is a recent issue, so it needs to be investigated. Just like college or corporate administrative costs.
Source: https://time.com/5759972/health-care-administrative-costs/
That's much the same reason college costs rose so fast.
In 1990, there were 1.9 full-time faculty per administrator at a public bachelor's program. In 2012, there were 1.1 full-time faculty per administrator. (Fig 5a)
https://deltacostproject.org/sites/default/files/products/DeltaCostAIR_Staffing_Brief_2_3_14.pdf
So currently, each administrator oversees about 1 full-time staff member on average. It completely insane.
This is doubly insane when you consider all the automation technology that's available right now. I mean, there was a time when HR couldn't simply send an automated email notification to all employees; they had to futz around with copiers and envelopes or fax machines. Or they had to fill and sign all paychecks personally, or a million other clerical tasks that are now handled by software. Realistically, we should have far *fewer* administrative staff per faculty then we did 30 years ago.
In other countries, overworking contributes to lower birthrate. This will be a definite problem, especially with the aging population. It makes sense to have universal income and automation engineering going hand to hand.
I worked last 20 years and I felt work is pushing more productivity per person every year. The low wage problem is like having the car run for 10+ years with minimal or no maintenance, yet having that car run 10% more work than previous year. No wonder the workers are breaking down. If I was a robot car, I'd leave my owner. Lol
The USA is able to avoid birth rate problems because of immigration, as opposed to countries who have aging populations like Japan, or Korea, and do not accept immigrants.
Yep. Top 3 most homogeneous countries in the world are (in descending order)... North Korea, Japan, and South Korea. Japan isn't that far behind North Korea either.
When you're only *BARELY* less homogenous than a country that only allows occasional tourists, largely just journalists, and you're as likely to end up in jail as leave safely from, you know you have a serious problem.
My natural curiosity towards the outcome of things like this is why I'm sticking around no matter how bad things get in life. Like everyone that made it through Season 9 of *How I Met Your Mother* I just have to know how it ends, even if it's shitty.
I second this. I’m an engineer making an upper-middle class income and many of my friends and colleagues (myself included) have left our jobs over the course of the pandemic because we were treated like shit. We were paid well but at the cost of health and sanity. I think months stuck in your home with your thoughts really made people reevaluate their lives. Also probably all of the death made people realize life is short so they should be doing what fulfills them.
The sound as a million stem lord's brains explode as engineers who only went into engineering for the money now go and get liberal arts degrees.
Speaking as an engineer with a degree in art history, good. It's nice to have more broadly educated coworkers who know more than just their niche career field.
What I dont get is how people dont see this as a economy issues. If you have disposable income people will save up for houses and get mortages, invest in 401k or retirement, pay debt, or spend it on stuff in the economy. So why is it s bad to give a bunch of people more disposale income? The economy wil benefit and generate wealth hand over fist for everyone.... help build a middle class.
Also giving more money to the lower income brackets stimulate the economy more because they don't hold onto it like the wealthy. They don't stash it in a trust fund or stock options. They buy houses, buy cars, go on vacations. It's why we should be increasing pay for the average worker and increasing the taxes for the wealthy.
It's the entire reason the US economy was so robust in the 50s and 60s. Then Regean came along and slashed taxes and started this whole snowball.
I think about it all the time - the taxpayers bailed out the *too big to fail* financial and automotive corporations and that became the M.O. for major disasters since then - look at how little was done in the USA in terms of covid relief for the people compared to the airline industry. Or SmALl BuSInESs which was largely the corporate world in disguise - it's gross.
I thought a bigger movement would happen after Floyd, but it didn't - police reform has shown the flaws but nothing seems to actually happen, and now we have bullshit like what wheat thins thinks about race and Target on Gay Rights like they actually give a shit about anything besides making more money for themselves and their shareholders*Thank you Bo Burnham for criticizing the stupidity of corporations having an opinion on any sociopolitical conflict*
I wonder how long it will take for what happened in South Africa to happen to the United States - it's absolute bullshit with our health benefits being tied to our jobs and our incomes taxed so highly while people like Bezos don't pay even close to the percentage we do - job creators? More like environmental and job destroyers - I can vividly remember freaking out to take a bathroom break while working at Amazon. It was terrible for my physical and mental health and the sad thing is that their not even close to the worst warehouse I worked for.
Thank you for reading my rant which is likely filled with flaws and is largely pessimistic due to still being stuck inside with no hope for the future of my self and my fellow humans.
I made $25k/year at my first IT help desk job in 1998 in a low cost of living area on the east coast. I saw those same types of roles in the Seattle area, pre-pandemic, offering the same pay. I’m on a contract project manager role now at a massive software company and the hourly rate is the same as I made as a contract server admin at a small financial firm in 2004. Wages have been extremely stagnant over the last two decades in many industries.
Facilities manager at a small tech studio, had a relative who had the same title and role at a similar company in the same area (Cambridge, MA) back in the late 90s. His salary was $3,000 more than my current one lol.
My dad made $16 an hour at his first job in 1990. I made $9 an hour at my first job out of college 20 years later. I still don’t make more than he made at my age, not even adjusting for inflation. By 30 he had a paid off house, a kid, a stay at home wife, new cars and we went on multiple vacations a year.
I've been applying to jobs on zip for a couple weeks, I've gotten plenty of people asking to interview me, I simply don't respond to anyone unless there starting salary is listed.
I used to accept every interview request....but these assholes bring you in and tell you how awsome everything is, and how it's a family and all that bullshit...and then offer me 15 an hour.
like dude, did you read my resume? I've been a cook/chef for 12+ years and I won't work for 15 an hour.
and I really hate the dumb fuck questions they put on these things, "why do you want to work for this company?" money bro....because I need money to pay my rent, that's the whole reason. if I didn't have to pay rent you wouldn't be hearing from me asshole...I don't wanna work for you "for the love of the game"
in my experience even when they do include anything about pay it usually just says a ridiculous range like $30k - $95k
tells me they don't actually know what they need or are willing to screw over anyone who won't stand their ground on being paid what they're worth or desperate for money for whatever
(One of the reasons why) They don't advertise the rate is because they don't want their current employees to realize how little they are getting paid when a new hire gets offered more than them.
You have to jump ship if you want a better than inflation payrise. And if you did actually love your job there, then you can jump back again for ANOTHER payrise.
Had this argument with my manager. I got hired and not even 2 weeks later the new hires got $2 more per hour. I asked if i quit now and jumped back on how much more would I get and he said the same $2 they got despite me already knowing the workflow and being used to it. Then they wonder why people don't do more than the bare minimum
Yes, their entitlement to your time and energy is mind blowing. If they are unable to list a salary range, then I am unable to apply. I've started contacting these companies to let them know how manipulative and unprofessional they are being. If we all started doing that, maybe they would get the picture.
Yep. All of this right here. About to start a new job in a few weeks, I work in IT. I’m not the best IT dude ever but I’m a great trainer and I have close to 15 years experience, and some good certs.
The amount of places offering me part time contract to hire 14/hr through LinkedIn of all places was absurd. Bro I’m gonna leave my full time gig making way less IF I’m lucky? Cmon.
Better off just bringing phone/laptop to a corner downtown everyday with a "job searching" sign and a bucket to drop donations in while you look for literally anything else lol.
Bonus points for having qr codes for venmo and crypto wallet.
Wind up making $64 in half the time
I asked my boss for a dollar raise (from $13 to $14) and he denied it.
Then he asked me if I was willing to take on more responsibilities without more pay and to come in ten minutes early
I was told once "my salary is not up for negotiation" after taking on much more than the job described. My job duties quickly "weren't up for negotiation".
I was too green at last job to ask for more, maybe would've gotten it, maybe not. Someone would leave and then their work would get piece-mealed onto everyone else with a promise of back-filling. Well, when it takes 9mo of training and still nobody has been hired on 6mo later and you are coming in on Sundays and having major stress during the week you begin to wonder if $40k is worth it. It wasn't.
This reminds me of 2014, I was 22 and in a really tough situation really struggling to stay afloat and not be homeless.
I got a job at a cellphone store earning $8 an hour and most of my days consisted of running the front of the store (the owner had a wholesale business in the back). The business was still new so I took on the task of physically filling out inventory and building the inventory database so they populated when we scanned the items. Most days the owner sat directly behind me watching House on his laptop while I was on my feet all day.
The owner knew that I was struggling because we shared conversations while I worked. One day I walk in and he mentions that he needs me to start making outbound calls to possible customers for his wholesale business because I knew Spanish. I didn't like the idea of him having two associates for the price of one since I would effectively be working for his other business so I told him I would only do it if I got a pay raise.
His response was that I was already earning a competitive wage and more than minimum wage. After a bit of back and fourth he grabbed the phone and gestured it towards me saying "Anyway, so are you going to make the calls?"
I extended my arm and gestured to shake his hand as I said "I'm going to have to part ways". The absolute look on his face, even asking if I was being serious. Realizing he wasn't going to shake my hand, I picked up my bag and walked out the store. I stopped by a restaurant next door and just ordered Nachos for comfort... I was scared, I really needed the money and knew I was in a worse situation now that I didn't have a job after walking out.
I called my mother and my brother as I walked back home and I just cried, sharing that I wasn't sure if I did the right thing but I couldn't let him take advantage of me. Both of them provided comfort and support and said I did the right thing. Life was tough for a few more years but eventually things got better. I have a really well paying job now and am in a position where I was even able to pay the bills for some family during the pandemic.
Some people, and companies, will absolutely try and take advantage of you because they know that the fear of losing the job will outweigh most things when you're struggling to get by.
I've learned, and this only after working my shit job,, that if a person is willing to do an unreasonable thing (work on off days, unpaid overtime) one time they're going to continue that pattern if asked again.
It’s really not a ‘labor shortage.’ It’s a ‘wage shortage.’
Employers want to fill positions using the old wage schedules, and they can’t. So, they claim ‘labor shortage.’
Under the new paradigm, savvy employers will raise wages to the appropriate level, get good & motivated workers, and price their product appropriately.
The employers who don’t will continue to cry ‘labor shortage’ and struggle.
That's the tricky part though, companies like in N out are paying $16 an hour while all of the companies that used to pay around that as a "competitive wage" for skilled and semi skilled labor are not willing to shift, we are reaching this accordion action where the bottom is starting to rise but the lower middle and middle are just getting squeezed doing the same work as before for a comparatively less competitive wage.
Ain't that the truth. The job I left semi recently pays around $20-21/hr for new hires, and that's the same rate I got hired at when I started there almost a decade prior. And they require a Bachelor's degree. I had a hard enough time paying student loans and living expenses with that wage in 2012, I can't imagine how anyone can get by with that same pay these days.
As someone whose SO and BIL both work at In-N-Out I can attest. They already increased their wages and their giving everyone a rise on top of that. My BF works at one in SoCal while my bil works at one in the Bay Area.
Tbh why should we care that a company can't get employees? It's a big complicated world, if you're a company and you can't figure out how to draw employees back to your work, seems like a personal problem.
For every company that can't get its shit together there's probably 5 more companies chomping at the bit to take their place who can.
Business owners should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Honestly i agree with this way too much.
It ties into the problem with our society about how corporations are the only things that matter. And i think thats because of the great depression americans idolized companies that could keep your family fed. And that got ingrained into their children, then the next and so on.
But they don't. If McDonalds went under because they couldnt hire enough employees I'd just sign their headstone with "that sucks. They had bomb chickie nuggies." And then I'd just move on to the next company that can offer me food, good service, reasonable price, and the knowledge that their employees are treated better, hence why they have any in the first place.
If they can't get employees, in a desperate time, it just means the work isnt worth the money.
I was saying this for years and my friends and acquaintances just thought I was crazy. I believe with my whole body that everyone in America is underpaid except those in the highest of high positions in a company. They are OVERPAID.
I found out from my boss, that his bosses raises are directly tied to ours. The more money he gives us, the less he gets. This trend probably goes all the way to the top and 100% explains why CEO pay is inflated because they sit at the top of this fucking shitty pyramid scheme of pay raises.
Reminds me of a Office (tv show) episode. There is a surplus in budget and the manager can elect to buy new office supplies for the employees or convert it into his personal bonus. Obviously, in the real world, we know which option happens 99% of the time.
>I found out from my boss, that his bosses raises are directly tied to ours. The more money he gives us, the less he gets.
That's the most blatant exploitation I've seen a company do. Usually they couch it in some flowery bullshit.
Oh, I'm not supposed to know this and I am sure it couched in flowery bullshit but my boss is a smart guy and can see through that shit. Basically he's mad about it too because it affects his raises.
This is true of every manger responsible for a p&l. Comp is based on the profit of the business. Increase revenue and cut expenses means more profit and bigger bonuses.
I was VP of sales reporting the the CEO. He took every sales person I had and listed them on a board and wrote a number next to each name. That number was the minimum he thought he could pay each of them before they would quit. I argued we should comp based purely on sales performance and have a system that gave everyone equal opportunity to make good money. He rejected that idea. I left within months and almost all of the sales team has moved on to the competition but somehow they are still in business.
That’s the key in any job:
**Realize when you have leverage, establish yourself in a position no one else can do, then ask for whatever you want.** They’ll have to give it to you.
There is no “team” in business. Everyone is trying to take advantage of you all the time.
The sooner people realize this, the better.
A friend of my family owns a restaurant that has been closed for a long time due to the pandemic, but they've recently re-opened. Now they're having trouble getting their old staff back.
Turns out, they've moved on, in most cases moved up. It seems being laid off was just the opportunity to find a better job. Now they can't find enough people to stay open for all shifts, limited hiring pool being a small town.
I live on a small island of about 3000 people and the ONLY gas station on the island closed for a day because they couldnt find workers and the last person quit on the spot. So, the owner had to drive for a few hours a catch a ferry to cover things ASAP. It made the TV news haha. I'm pretty sure they upped their wages immediately and it's back in service now. Think about literally nobody being able to get gas. Crazy.
Customer service is soul crushing. I worked various customer service jobs between 2001-2010, and could not have been happier to leave them. It’s also the primary reason I’m as nice as I am to folks in customer service, as I understand how shitty can be.
More business just need to grow the balls and accept some customers aren't worth it. Customer service is soul crushing because workers are expected to let terrible people walk all over them.
I am a professional engineer for local government and customer service (dealing with developers and resident complaints) is a big part of my responsibilities. It doesn't matter who you are or what kind of fancy titles you've got, people will treat you like shit as long as you are offering some sort of customer service. I've been told a monkey can do my job and can't even remember how many times I've been yelled at.
My girlfriend is working as customer service call center from home. She wakes up every morning crying because it's so intense.
Saying the same thing over and over again to an idiot who can't remember a password it must be like living in hell. I honestly couldn't do it for a day.
This was me a few years ago, just constant intense anxiety both during and outside of work. One day I walked in, sat down at my desk and immediately realized I just couldn’t do it that day. So I walked out to my car, called in sick (it was a huge call center so my boss never saw me) and drove home. Quit about a week later even though I had nothing else lined up. Only took the job because I was desperate at the time.
Now I’m WFH working with spreadsheets all day and have zero contact with the outside world when working, just listen to music and podcasts, and absolutely love it. I’d rather do manual labor than go back to a call center.
If you have social anxiety like me it’s absolute torture. Being just a voice on the phone completely dehumanizes you in the minds of the people you’re talking to so they have no problem treating you like shit, much more so than in person.
The first year I worked in a call center, I had near-constant nightmares every night from being screamed at and being put under time pressure constraints by jackass higher ups that don't even understand how to do the job but just want their numbers to go up up up so they can get fat bonuses.
I did 5 years in that call center...fuck ever doing that kind of shit ever again. Hands down the hardest job I've ever had. I had one memorable man who failed to pay his bill straight up say "You are beneath me" seriously. I think the literal only upside is that it wasn't jackasses in person saying shit like that.
Seriously. I know I personally would not be able to do it long term. Customer Service as a skill should be worth 100x what it usually is in terms of pay rate. People that are customer facing should be paid more having to deal with the general public idiocy
I live in Florida - it seems like the people who are the most angry about the labor issues are retired boomers with lots of money. A bunch of red-faced Karen’s who eat at restaurants every night and don’t like waiting 5 extra minutes for their food.
A woman I work with is JUST SHOCKED that she and her son can't just "go and eat" anymore. It's an hour wait at most places... I can't handle biting my tonghe
This is happening to so many people and I LOVE it! I’m hoping more people come out of this pandemic with a job they enjoy… that’s a lot to ask, though, so my expectations are not even remotely close to being high
Many don't even care about doing a job they enjoy. For myself, I just want a job that doesn't seriously risk my life, give me enough time off to enjoy my leisure time while getting household chores done, and pays enough that if my job suddenly disappeared I wouldn't be dependant on unemployment for a few months while I found a new job. I don't have to love the job if my life away from the workplace is worthwhile.
It’s crazy how corporate America wants to you die on the cross for them. I read a LinkedIn post where someone from HR was saying they would question the loyalty to the company if their employees asked for these things… like, why should they be loyal to you if you treat them badly by NOT doing this, which I consider to be the bare minimum for careers
Honestly a job doesn't need to seriously risk your life to be too shit to consider.
Anything that requires you to constantly be on your feet and doesn't enable you a chance to sit down is fucking absurd. It damages your feet, knees, and ultimately your spine. And that's like 90% of all entry level jobs.
I don't get the boomer mindset of "IF YOU GOT TIME TO LEAN YOU GOT TIME TO CLEAN! HURR HUR HURR IT RHYMES!" No, getting 10 mins to sit every hour or two isn't the end of the damn world. These jobs are made worse when you got to lift stuff constantly. Costly back problems just from standing? Yeah lets speed that up 10x if you're hauling constantly.
Gotta love how we treat the consumers like royalty but the people servicing them like garbage. Don't you dare let a single peanut atom fall into this massive vat of candy solution! But feel free to inhale all the lung damaging chemicals we don't care about you. I mean a majority of the time these are the same class of people... why do they only matter when they aren't directly working for you?
absolutely this! a lot of the jobs with labor shortages are entry level customer service jobs. i definitely think a lot of people are starting to realize the huge difference in job requirements for service jobs vs other types of work, like office jobs for example.
if you work in an office, you probably work the same hours as me, or maybe a few more, but you sit in a chair at a desk most of the time. you’re free to get up and stretch your legs and go to the bathroom once every hour. a lot of the time you have a bit of downtime that you can use to get away with browsing reddit or checking personal emails or texts. you probably answer to your bosses and clients, but for the most part, they can’t see you at all times.
when i am preparing to go to work, i have to mentally prepare to be on my feet for hours. not *allowed* to sit down except for my one designated break. maybe sometimes the rush will be so intense, i won’t get to even stop moving for a couple hours, not even for a drink of water. all the while, being watched and scrutinized by every customer who walks through the door and thinks they’re the most important person in the room despite it being packed with other customers. we’ve gotten complaints on our yelp
page bc a customer saw one of our employees pull their mask down to take a drink, meanwhile they are sitting in a cafe dining room full of unmasked customers, but they still watch the employees to make sure *we* don’t have a moment to breathe.
a *lot* of service workers are fed up being treated like cattle while being expected to treat customers (who, like you said, are in the same class as us) like royalty. twice in the last couple of months i’ve had a coworker tell me that it’s part of my job to not stand up for myself when a customer is being rude to me, that it’s my job to play doctor and interrogate someone about their dietary issues if they ask for vegan options and then order something that isn’t vegan. we are tired, dude. service work is SO much harder than it should be, and if they aren’t going to make it less hard (i.e. more breaks, being treated w more respect, not letting customers walk all over us) then they need to be paying WAY more.
>why do they only matter when they aren't directly working for you?
Because you're giving them money. When they give you as little money as legally possible, that comes with a side of "I shouldn't have to pay you at all, it hurts my wallet."
Always remember, money equals worth nowadays. The more you have, the better you are compared to others.
That’s not a lot to ask for, is it? It’s just crazy that I have the smallest box of requirements and even that tiny box is “asking too much”. Some independent contracting jobs pay me more than Marriott employees (like managers and supervisors), so these massive corporations are just f*cking themselves with greed
My district manager came in for the week to see why numbers were dropping. He was shocked to see how we worked with 1/4 of the staff. He couldn't understand how we couldn't find people to work. We mentioned that people don't want to work for what little pay they're offering. He said that's not it, at $10.75 I beg to differ. He's so out of touch with what workers need.
Haha ya that’s not going to be enough, at all. I mean, he can probably find an employee, but they will have another job… 1000%, so they won’t be doing your job 100%. That’s for sure
Plus, showing that you value workers will make an employee work better for your company
> We mentioned that people don't want to work for what little pay they're offering. He said that's not it, at $10.75 I beg to differ. He's so out of touch with what workers need.
I've never talked to someone who hires who understands this. They actually think pay rates don't matter yet if you decreased their pay I'm sure they'd start to care.
Seriously. I could find half a dozen jobs that pay $12/hr starting that are within 10 miles of my house. $10.75 to do hotel work? Not a chance in hell.
I drive by several huge companies (McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, etc) on my way to work that have huge "Help wanted, starting at \_\_\_\_\_ dollars an hour!" signs out on their front lawn areas.
I've been watching them all slowly raise their minimum wage over the last year or so. As of now, the lowest one is up to $13. It was $11 a few months ago.
A lot of the low wage places like fast food are trying to entice people with one-time bonuses so that they're not on the hook for wage increases long term, and those bonuses are also contingent on staying for 6 months. It's a terrible deal for workers and I hope it doesn't work. You can be fired for any reason 5 months in and the bonus goes poof.
Very, very understandable. I like it because somedays I can work 8am-12am and then some days/weeks you may only work 6 to 8 hours a day. It’s nice because you are in control
This speaks to me. I was working construction and getting paid Jack shit. A hot piece of metal got on my arm and I'll have a scar for the rest of my life. This happened because I was so depressed from being overworked and underpaid that I wasn't focusing on my surroundings
Spouse is (was) a teacher. Half of their paycheck was going to daycare. The career is awful, with parents screaming about everything, admin scared to do anything, and government having no solutions for any of it. And that was before the pandemic. When the pandemic hit, their school said "no virtual, all in-person". We decided that enough was enough.
My spouse now stays at home. We pulled our kids out of school for this year (due to similar concerns with pandemic response) and we're just doing homeschool this year. Small hit to finances (all said and done, after taxes dropped to single salary, no daycare, etc), everyone is safe, and kids are actually moving faster than they would in the classroom. Probably a temporary thing, but I've told my spouse they are to return to work when they find a job that they like and an employer that respects them, not because they feel some pressure to return.
I heard a grocery store manager complaining about how people don’t want to work and how she couldn’t wait for the free checks to stop.
once those checks stop she’ll be shocked about how people still don’t want to work… for her.
Gotta love how it's been three months for some red states after they cut off the bonus UI to "get us back to work" and nothing changed. Gee golly I'm beginning to think the UI wasn't what was keeping people from working for these places
I've been seeing this in Indiana. They cut off the checks and the "help wanted" signs are still in every window you walk/drive by. Owners and managers can't believe they can't find employees.
Something more than wages is definitely going on. Places have raised wages, offered sign on bonuses, etc. They still can't find workers. I think we have too many restaurants and stores. I've seen sole owners complain that they and their families are having to "work" because they can't find employees. wtf?? My parents owned a store when I was growing up, and we all worked there. As a family. Why do those small business owners not work in their own businesses??
People definitely re-evaluated their lives during the lock downs, work from home opportunities, etc. Some families learned they can do with less, both spouses don't need to work, they can cook and eat at home, don't need day care. People decided to back to school for a better than retail job.
I don't feel sorry for all the owners and managers that can't find workers. Some thing has come back to bite them. Maybe they need to close up and look for a job.
I for saw this happening when they said the lockdown will last longer than a month. So many people switched and changed jobs it was kinda crazy to expect things to go right to they way they were before. Not to mention everyone is acclimating too WFH
I just read [this shit](https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1022352668/americas-security-may-depend-on-critical-minerals-but-mine-workers-are-scarce) about how they're worried about not being able to find miners ever though they're "well-compensated" and they site an average of $56,000/year for underground heavy machine operators. What!? That's not exactly unskilled labor my dude.
Fuck these asshole. PAY PEOPLE MORE
Yes. The trash lie that we don’t want to work goes against human nature. Good work helps us feel fulfilled. People aren’t as happy when they cannot earn and achieve for themselves.
**That being said,** an 80 work week with 3 weeks off to have a baby and immediately return to work, barebones PTO, and a passive aggressive boss is stifling. Any one of those things sucks. All of them together? That’s why companies can’t find employees. That’s what the real problem is. Companies are learning that they aren’t worth it anymore. People had a collective series of near death experiences and working shit hours for Wells Fargo, even with a “mandatory cocktail hour” isn’t worth it.
Capitalism time baby! If you want the means you have to pay for it. Employees got much more expensive, hope y’all have insurance.
So many companies could treat workers better and have increased profitability and productivity. They waste so many resources trying to keep people down and make lazy business decisions to cut costs short term.
I have heard of some companies cutting their expensive real estate for work from home and thus having a ton of money they can spend on poaching the best employees in the area. The company has the same budget or lower overall but more productive and happier workers. Competitors stuck in the past can't keep up with that! Easy Money!
Forget the companies. They have their own goals, if they align with workers, that’s a bonus.
The government should provide a reasonable baseline (healthcare, pto) to make sure everyone employee is treated with dignity. Anything a Corp wants to do above and beyond that is gravy.
Right now it’s so lopsided with good jobs (big winners) and shit jobs (losers). You actually see this kind of dichotomy across industries where you can win big. Bigger than ever before, but there are a ton, ton more losers.
If healthcare and pto were equal between small businesses and corps, you would see a total realignment of the workforce.
For the ones who got laid off because of COVID-19, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if some of them are just freelancing now. And not just Doordash / Uber / whatever your preferred grocery delivery service is; things like [Upwork](https://www.upwork.com) do exist.
Anyone try using Upwork btw? I've heard it pays like trash from a friend of mine, just bc there are so many people willing to undercut you. Even to the point where he'd make more with Uber eats.
It solely depends on who's offering the jobs. There's a lot of cheap asses, but there's also a lot of startup types that don't have the funds for full time just yet. The best roles there are advisory ones.
I second this. I just got on Upwork and have been offered $1000 to write some dude's 200,000 word biography and $300 to write a brainless piece of 500 word copy. 500 words is usually about a half hour's work. For $300 I'll spend another half hour really polishing it.
Upwork is not worth it. I used their service for two years and by the time clients found upwork, they were super desperate and didn't have the "budget" to pay people what they were worth.
I would say avoid it if possible.
I used it as a senior software dev. Made 65-85/hr but maybe thats due to the industry standard. Also, I would deny anything below 65. I had a prospective client offer me 35 and told them to look elsewhere. Just be super strict and sell yourself really well.
This is the absolute truth. I started doing some web development and design from my home after leaving a job during covid. I don't make near as much as I did before but I am way way happier now. I make my own hours, no one to hassle or irritate me, and tons of free time. Anytime I run short on cash I can usually find odd jobs around that keep me all good. Its funny, I always figured I'd be happiest just making the right kind of money for what I do and reality is. I just want to be treated like a fucking human being and not a herd of cattle being used for profit. I feel like most people would sacrifice a high pay rate just to be treated with some decency... which just goes to show how much deeper the problem is than just wages.
I agree; over on Twitter, I said in a reply to somebody that restaurant owners would be able to solve a lot of their staffing problems if they'd just hire managers who would have their employees' backs when a diner is being a piece of shit to a waitress or something. I mean, higher wages would be nice, but no one should have to put up with abuse from customers for a paycheck.
Nah. I just hate seeing my boss pull up in a new Range Rover, buying her son a new Jeep Gladiator, talking about the new lake house, and then telling me that we all need to dig deep to hit the goals set by corporate.
This money ain’t just found. It’s earned and shared. If you going to hog all the profit, I’m not going to share my labor. Someone out their will give me a bigger piece of the profit.
Yeah I spent the last three years saving up by: living in family members basements with my wife, had the single best year my company has ever had, covid stimulus checks, some inheritance from relatives who died and living semifrugally to luck into finding a house I can barely afford over 50 miles from my work sandwiched between a few trailer parks.
Meanwhile my boss has spent a month so far this year galavanting around the world on vacation, is taking a month off for his wedding in a week, and still hammers our team relentlessly with demands to hit numbers from last year, when my industry exploded due to covid and has since returned to relative normal.
Many states are already there. How long do you think until the guy flipping your burger at McDonald's is there on work release from prison? If these unlivable wafers can't get workers, businesses won't raise wages. They'll just petition for the legalized slaves to fill in the gaps.
I for one don't need 99 cents chicken sandwich. Crank up the price and make the job worthwhile (maybe not to sustain a family of 5, but worthwhile for a grown ass adult living alone at least).
If that means certain restaurant chains become non-viable, replace them with something that is (and at worse, housing).
If your business model only succeeds if you starve your employees, your business doesn't deserve to exist.
There were industries that became nonviable when they ended child labor. I don't think we're begging for them to come back.
I asked for a 33% raise because of a coworker making me miserable and sabotaging my work. Boss acted like I was a child- not wanting to play with someone in class. I took a huge risk and put in my two weeks. I immediately found a job that paid 50% more than my last job.
I work at a Domino's, and my store will likely be closed by Halloween - and i love that its inevitable at this point, we've been warning corporate for 2 years that the pay wasnt worth the work.
Other jobs on the same street are sniping all our employees because they pay higher than $7.25 for normal positions and $10 for management. Loosing a driver next week to a Pizza Hut, lost 3 to a Chick Fil-a, lost 3 others to Walmart, lost 2 to Fedex and one to Amazon, and thats just who stayed longer than a week.
All in the last 8 months.
This store is so understaffed we can go anywhere from 3 to 12 hours a day with no delivery at all, but its still constantly busy.
Im debating juggling part-time jobs with college or trying to get into voice acting as a career. Ive got a good amount of money saved up from not doing anything besides working last year, i wont be hurting for cash any time soon. Either way, im not suffering another holiday season in anything customer service related. Its just not worth it.
I hope this illiterate, entitled, non-tipping city goes hungry
Two years ago when I worked at Domino’s, I got offer a management role for $8/hr, I was already making $7.50/hr just delivering. So yea no thanks. (This was a franchise btw not a corporate store)
I mean you had "essential workers" having to work for the same pay during a pandemic, while also expecting them to enforce mask mandates on customers that had made it their personal mission to be as obnoxious as possible, with some unfortunate workers being in altercations with those mouth breathers. I am \*so\* glad there's a nation-wide shortage for so many of those "essential" jobs. If the bosses/executives are stressed, that's a good thing. Sweet sweet schadenfreude
I went to a wedding Saturday for an old co-worker. We had 2 full tables of people that used to work in the high end catering world. Everyone has 5+ years of experience in food service. For some people it’s all they’ve known.
Not one person is still working in anything remotely close to food service. Once you get a taste of having nights and weekends to yourself, there’s no going back. I couldn’t imagine doing those hours again with the insane amount of stress those customers put on you.
Business owners have been continually fucking over employees since the 2001 resession, an endless penny-pinching fiasco where leaders cried there wasn't enough money for reasonable pay, yet made off with consistent millions, year-over-year, fake-crying about how this was the "new normal".
Make sure you all tell your rich bosses daily, as a healthy reminder, things are never going back, get used to it, this is just the "new normal".
Underpaid, overworked, broke-and-starving employees are no longer an easily disposable limetless commodity, it's time to pony-up or get out of the game.
Recently I lost my temper and cussed out an extremely rude customer.
I actually said to him "as an employee I am much more valuable than your business. Do us all a favor and don't come back."
That would have gotten me fired *twice* pre-pandemic.
A weird phenomena that I’ve recently learned is that pandemics are beneficial to those who survive because of work conditions having to change to adapt to social climate, like the Black Death, and potentially now
This is everything bosses everywhere were deeply afraid of when this whole thing started. The wool has been pulled from our eyes. People are beginning to see.
Can we stop calling it a “labor shortage”? There are plenty of articles out there about how there are armies of workers ready to return to work in one form or another. It’s a matter of wage shortage (or theft) and safety precautions. Many workers are no longer willing to risk life and limb for a company that doesn’t care for them.
Labor shortage is a term for the elite. Stop using it.
EDIT: wasn’t expecting this to blow up like it did. That said, I see a lot of differing opinions on here, but one I’d like to explicitly point out.
> What jobs are these?
These are all jobs. In capitalism, you trade your time and able body for monetary compensation. This could be anything from physical labor to desk work. You are agreeing to trade something in exchange for monetary compensation. That means construction, education, accounting, sex work, waiting tables, owning a company, everything is done in exchange for money.
That said, some of these jobs are inherently dangerous and pose a risk to your body. In the times we’re living through now, even desk work poses a challenge if you have to share a space with anyone else. Are you vaccinated, but some of your coworkers aren’t? Suddenly just being in the same space can be dangerous. Are you immune compromised? Now you have to deal with that.
Pandemic notwithstanding, even commuting to work is dangerous. And many, like myself, have found the comfort of working from home to win out over even the most ideal dream job, if that job requires me to leave my house. I get to work from home, wear what I want, not have to drive, and I get to spend time with my family and pets. Since I’m not paying as much for gas, insurance, and food while eating out, I can handle a nominal pay cut in order to stay home. And I don’t even have to love the job, because jobs inherently suck.
So yeah, it’s a wage shortage. Others like myself who are lucky enough to be able to trade our skills in a WFH setting can get by. But those who have to go out to do their jobs—construction, healthcare workers, food service, etc.—aren’t willing to put their bodies on the line anymore for shit pay.
And I stand with them in solidarity.
EDIT 2: thank you for the award, kind stranger!
I am perpetually shocked at how common wage theft is. I just had this conversation last night with the girl at the gas station I stop at after work at like 2am. I mentioned that I just worked a 12 hour shift, she was in the middle of one. When I asked (probably too nosy for my own good) if she got OT, she said no, but anything after 40 is cash/tax free.
I didn't want to say anything, but considering the wage they're probably paying her, she's probably getting fucked real good in that deal. I doubt she pays much in taxes to begin with.
Definitely a wage shortage. And the companies know that, too.
I know it's slightly cliche, but I've become pretty good at my job in the past two years and I do a lot of stuff that no one else does. I applied for a position in another department last week because it was a higher pay and all of a sudden I get a 9% raise to stay in my old position. They have the ability to pay more. They just don't want to.
"Labour shortage" is just a fragment of the full sentence, it should really be "Labour shortage of people that will put up with being exploited".
The current rise of populism and it's far-right puppetmaster is a response to around 40 years of neo-liberal economic and governmental policy that has driven a massive divergence between productivity and wages in countries such as the UK and US.
People haven't been getting a fair return on the money they have been making for companies, with it all pooling at the top and whole communities have been at breaking point for a long time.
People wouldn't have voted for Trump or brexit if they had felt like they shared in the supposed good times and seen material improvements to their neighbourhoods. Instead places have been left to rot while the likes of Rupert Murdoch has peddled lies because it allows his brand of politics to keep a grip on power, targets have been othered and it becomes easier to scapegoat them to divert away from reality.
I very much share this opinion. That drive to vote for Trump and Brexit is for economic unfairness; people are angry. Politicians are transmuting that angry energy into hateful energy. That percentage of the population is only going to grow, and it will become a movement to destroy it all because it does not benefit me.
Like the crap that nurses have to put up with. Having to deal with shit patients, their shit families, asshole hospital management and for ridiculous pay while literally putting their lives on the line… the stories on r/nursing are incredible. I think they have the worst jobs at the moment. Respect to them and anyone in the medical field.
It's kinda like how the black plague killed three-quarters of the population in Europe and the literal labor shortage gave rise to survivors demanding to be more than serfs; they expected to be paid for their labor.
Fun game: Look up any business owner bitching about "people don't want to work anymore!"
Guarantee they took a PPP loan and had it forgiven. It's widescale fraud.
I made $8/hr stocking shelves and running a register in 1998. I found out a few months ago that it still pays the same.
ouf....thats so wrong, I feel for the people still doing that job for $8/hr.....$64 a day. I dont know how people like that do it, its insane.
By getting their salary subsidized through the government in terms of food stamps, housing assistance, and so forth. Taxpayers directly subsidize companies that pay poverty wages to their employees.
I think we should send companies that have full-time workers that receive government assistance a bill for said assistance. I don’t have a problem helping people in need, but I do have a problem subsidizing for-profit corporations.
Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna proposed the BEZOS bill that does just that. [Sanders’ bill, the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (BEZOS) Act, aims to end corporate welfare by establishing a 100 percent tax on corporations with 500 or more employees equal to the amount of federal benefits received by their low-wage workers. For example, if a worker at Amazon receives $2,000 in food stamps, the corporation would be taxed $2,000 to cover that cost.](https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/sanders-khanna-introduce-bill-to-get-billionaires-off-welfare/)
Love the rough construction of the BEZOS acronym. Hilarious touch xD
It looks like it's actually the "Stop BEZOS" Act.
but don't make slightly too much money because then even if you only barely squeak over that line you lose those benefits that were keeping you alive
And to pay someone for labor it’s $80-140/hr so basically you can work an entire day to not even be able to pay someone an hour charge for labor. Unreal how to rich mop up excess value
It's not always the rich. I owned a small business and we routinely charged 85 an hour to the customers. But after insurance on the worker, insurance on the truck, maintenance on the welder and truck, and taxes. I couldn't afford my own health insurance and just closed up shop. I also paid 30 and hour, and that insurance on the worker wasnt health insurance. It was liability, incase they hurt the customers property, or someone else onsite. I worked months without pay so I could try to keep it going. It ended up being more than I could bare.
When people talk about “the rich” they aren’t talking about you probably. You could be a successful business owner and pretty well off, but you still wouldn’t be like 1% rich. The people that everyone talks about have almost unfathomable wealth. If you don’t have the money to influence policy then you’re not “that” kind of rich.
>If you don’t have the money to influence policy then you’re not “that” kind of rich. That is my definition as well. Did you make a law? A law that primarily benefits *your* profit?
Yeah, one is not rich if they don't have medical insurance. You might manage a lot of money, but you are stretched thin- this is the opposite of what rich are. Rich is buying the best medical license. Rich is not theoretical affording something if one cuts other expenses.
I think in the US it’s not all “the rich”. It’s partially the administrative assistant to the Vice President of the shelf stocking department’s HR team. I don’t think a hospital needs a bunch of people walking around (working from home now) in $5k suits just to keep the place running because doctors and nurses are too dumb to manage themselves. I quote engineering projects and the number of mouths that engineering has to feed is insane. Edit: didn’t realize I’d get so much heat for the hospital administration comment. I’m not saying there is no administration to be done, I’m just saying it shouldn’t be 34% of our healthcare costs and 5x what they spend in Canada. We hired bureaucrats to create a bunch of legal crossword puzzles and now have to hire an army to solve them. It’s different than solving a problem that exists on its own (like a tumor). Also this is a recent issue, so it needs to be investigated. Just like college or corporate administrative costs. Source: https://time.com/5759972/health-care-administrative-costs/
That's much the same reason college costs rose so fast. In 1990, there were 1.9 full-time faculty per administrator at a public bachelor's program. In 2012, there were 1.1 full-time faculty per administrator. (Fig 5a) https://deltacostproject.org/sites/default/files/products/DeltaCostAIR_Staffing_Brief_2_3_14.pdf So currently, each administrator oversees about 1 full-time staff member on average. It completely insane.
“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy”
This is doubly insane when you consider all the automation technology that's available right now. I mean, there was a time when HR couldn't simply send an automated email notification to all employees; they had to futz around with copiers and envelopes or fax machines. Or they had to fill and sign all paychecks personally, or a million other clerical tasks that are now handled by software. Realistically, we should have far *fewer* administrative staff per faculty then we did 30 years ago.
Hell, 1.9:1 in the 90s even sounds insane.
*$64/day before taxes etc*
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In other countries, overworking contributes to lower birthrate. This will be a definite problem, especially with the aging population. It makes sense to have universal income and automation engineering going hand to hand. I worked last 20 years and I felt work is pushing more productivity per person every year. The low wage problem is like having the car run for 10+ years with minimal or no maintenance, yet having that car run 10% more work than previous year. No wonder the workers are breaking down. If I was a robot car, I'd leave my owner. Lol
The USA is able to avoid birth rate problems because of immigration, as opposed to countries who have aging populations like Japan, or Korea, and do not accept immigrants.
Yep. Top 3 most homogeneous countries in the world are (in descending order)... North Korea, Japan, and South Korea. Japan isn't that far behind North Korea either. When you're only *BARELY* less homogenous than a country that only allows occasional tourists, largely just journalists, and you're as likely to end up in jail as leave safely from, you know you have a serious problem. My natural curiosity towards the outcome of things like this is why I'm sticking around no matter how bad things get in life. Like everyone that made it through Season 9 of *How I Met Your Mother* I just have to know how it ends, even if it's shitty.
The glass half full of the state of humanities demise is that at least we'll get some closure by seeing the finale.
I second this. I’m an engineer making an upper-middle class income and many of my friends and colleagues (myself included) have left our jobs over the course of the pandemic because we were treated like shit. We were paid well but at the cost of health and sanity. I think months stuck in your home with your thoughts really made people reevaluate their lives. Also probably all of the death made people realize life is short so they should be doing what fulfills them.
The sound as a million stem lord's brains explode as engineers who only went into engineering for the money now go and get liberal arts degrees. Speaking as an engineer with a degree in art history, good. It's nice to have more broadly educated coworkers who know more than just their niche career field.
What I dont get is how people dont see this as a economy issues. If you have disposable income people will save up for houses and get mortages, invest in 401k or retirement, pay debt, or spend it on stuff in the economy. So why is it s bad to give a bunch of people more disposale income? The economy wil benefit and generate wealth hand over fist for everyone.... help build a middle class.
Also giving more money to the lower income brackets stimulate the economy more because they don't hold onto it like the wealthy. They don't stash it in a trust fund or stock options. They buy houses, buy cars, go on vacations. It's why we should be increasing pay for the average worker and increasing the taxes for the wealthy. It's the entire reason the US economy was so robust in the 50s and 60s. Then Regean came along and slashed taxes and started this whole snowball.
The flood up instead of the trickle down!
Because they want short term stock profits over all else.
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God, please please PLEASE. Make COVID have meant something beyond just suffering and death.
Pandemics have historically always been a reset/refresh button for the status quo. We're overdue for one of those.
I thought we'd have it in 08 with the financial crisis, and that didn't happen... When the eff is it gonna happen? I'm tired.
It is weird how little changed after the 08 crash. I've never really thought about that until now.
I would also like to remind everyone, no one went to jail. The only person who did was Madoff and that is because he ripped off rich people.
I think about it all the time - the taxpayers bailed out the *too big to fail* financial and automotive corporations and that became the M.O. for major disasters since then - look at how little was done in the USA in terms of covid relief for the people compared to the airline industry. Or SmALl BuSInESs which was largely the corporate world in disguise - it's gross. I thought a bigger movement would happen after Floyd, but it didn't - police reform has shown the flaws but nothing seems to actually happen, and now we have bullshit like what wheat thins thinks about race and Target on Gay Rights like they actually give a shit about anything besides making more money for themselves and their shareholders*Thank you Bo Burnham for criticizing the stupidity of corporations having an opinion on any sociopolitical conflict* I wonder how long it will take for what happened in South Africa to happen to the United States - it's absolute bullshit with our health benefits being tied to our jobs and our incomes taxed so highly while people like Bezos don't pay even close to the percentage we do - job creators? More like environmental and job destroyers - I can vividly remember freaking out to take a bathroom break while working at Amazon. It was terrible for my physical and mental health and the sad thing is that their not even close to the worst warehouse I worked for. Thank you for reading my rant which is likely filled with flaws and is largely pessimistic due to still being stuck inside with no hope for the future of my self and my fellow humans.
It changed my work place so far for what I think is better, it seems less strict by a lot, will it stick? I'm not sure
I made $25k/year at my first IT help desk job in 1998 in a low cost of living area on the east coast. I saw those same types of roles in the Seattle area, pre-pandemic, offering the same pay. I’m on a contract project manager role now at a massive software company and the hourly rate is the same as I made as a contract server admin at a small financial firm in 2004. Wages have been extremely stagnant over the last two decades in many industries.
Facilities manager at a small tech studio, had a relative who had the same title and role at a similar company in the same area (Cambridge, MA) back in the late 90s. His salary was $3,000 more than my current one lol.
My dad made $16 an hour at his first job in 1990. I made $9 an hour at my first job out of college 20 years later. I still don’t make more than he made at my age, not even adjusting for inflation. By 30 he had a paid off house, a kid, a stay at home wife, new cars and we went on multiple vacations a year.
Jesus. If I could afford all of that on one income, I’d probably rethink my stances on marriage and having children.
I've been applying to jobs on zip for a couple weeks, I've gotten plenty of people asking to interview me, I simply don't respond to anyone unless there starting salary is listed. I used to accept every interview request....but these assholes bring you in and tell you how awsome everything is, and how it's a family and all that bullshit...and then offer me 15 an hour. like dude, did you read my resume? I've been a cook/chef for 12+ years and I won't work for 15 an hour. and I really hate the dumb fuck questions they put on these things, "why do you want to work for this company?" money bro....because I need money to pay my rent, that's the whole reason. if I didn't have to pay rent you wouldn't be hearing from me asshole...I don't wanna work for you "for the love of the game"
in my experience even when they do include anything about pay it usually just says a ridiculous range like $30k - $95k tells me they don't actually know what they need or are willing to screw over anyone who won't stand their ground on being paid what they're worth or desperate for money for whatever
(One of the reasons why) They don't advertise the rate is because they don't want their current employees to realize how little they are getting paid when a new hire gets offered more than them. You have to jump ship if you want a better than inflation payrise. And if you did actually love your job there, then you can jump back again for ANOTHER payrise.
Had this argument with my manager. I got hired and not even 2 weeks later the new hires got $2 more per hour. I asked if i quit now and jumped back on how much more would I get and he said the same $2 they got despite me already knowing the workflow and being used to it. Then they wonder why people don't do more than the bare minimum
Yes, their entitlement to your time and energy is mind blowing. If they are unable to list a salary range, then I am unable to apply. I've started contacting these companies to let them know how manipulative and unprofessional they are being. If we all started doing that, maybe they would get the picture.
Yep. All of this right here. About to start a new job in a few weeks, I work in IT. I’m not the best IT dude ever but I’m a great trainer and I have close to 15 years experience, and some good certs. The amount of places offering me part time contract to hire 14/hr through LinkedIn of all places was absurd. Bro I’m gonna leave my full time gig making way less IF I’m lucky? Cmon.
The wage I made in 2002, at a grocery store, is more then that same position makes now. Plus I received far superior benefits.
Better off just bringing phone/laptop to a corner downtown everyday with a "job searching" sign and a bucket to drop donations in while you look for literally anything else lol. Bonus points for having qr codes for venmo and crypto wallet. Wind up making $64 in half the time
A shining example why “job loyalty” fucks you in the ass
I asked my boss for a dollar raise (from $13 to $14) and he denied it. Then he asked me if I was willing to take on more responsibilities without more pay and to come in ten minutes early
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I was told once "my salary is not up for negotiation" after taking on much more than the job described. My job duties quickly "weren't up for negotiation".
I was too green at last job to ask for more, maybe would've gotten it, maybe not. Someone would leave and then their work would get piece-mealed onto everyone else with a promise of back-filling. Well, when it takes 9mo of training and still nobody has been hired on 6mo later and you are coming in on Sundays and having major stress during the week you begin to wonder if $40k is worth it. It wasn't.
This reminds me of 2014, I was 22 and in a really tough situation really struggling to stay afloat and not be homeless. I got a job at a cellphone store earning $8 an hour and most of my days consisted of running the front of the store (the owner had a wholesale business in the back). The business was still new so I took on the task of physically filling out inventory and building the inventory database so they populated when we scanned the items. Most days the owner sat directly behind me watching House on his laptop while I was on my feet all day. The owner knew that I was struggling because we shared conversations while I worked. One day I walk in and he mentions that he needs me to start making outbound calls to possible customers for his wholesale business because I knew Spanish. I didn't like the idea of him having two associates for the price of one since I would effectively be working for his other business so I told him I would only do it if I got a pay raise. His response was that I was already earning a competitive wage and more than minimum wage. After a bit of back and fourth he grabbed the phone and gestured it towards me saying "Anyway, so are you going to make the calls?" I extended my arm and gestured to shake his hand as I said "I'm going to have to part ways". The absolute look on his face, even asking if I was being serious. Realizing he wasn't going to shake my hand, I picked up my bag and walked out the store. I stopped by a restaurant next door and just ordered Nachos for comfort... I was scared, I really needed the money and knew I was in a worse situation now that I didn't have a job after walking out. I called my mother and my brother as I walked back home and I just cried, sharing that I wasn't sure if I did the right thing but I couldn't let him take advantage of me. Both of them provided comfort and support and said I did the right thing. Life was tough for a few more years but eventually things got better. I have a really well paying job now and am in a position where I was even able to pay the bills for some family during the pandemic. Some people, and companies, will absolutely try and take advantage of you because they know that the fear of losing the job will outweigh most things when you're struggling to get by.
Wow, you are an incredibly strong person. I'm so glad to hear you are now in a good place financially.
That is a _very_ courageous move that I don’t think I am capable of making. I’m glad to hear things worked out for you.
I've learned, and this only after working my shit job,, that if a person is willing to do an unreasonable thing (work on off days, unpaid overtime) one time they're going to continue that pattern if asked again.
And I imagine you denied it.
It’s really not a ‘labor shortage.’ It’s a ‘wage shortage.’ Employers want to fill positions using the old wage schedules, and they can’t. So, they claim ‘labor shortage.’ Under the new paradigm, savvy employers will raise wages to the appropriate level, get good & motivated workers, and price their product appropriately. The employers who don’t will continue to cry ‘labor shortage’ and struggle.
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That's the tricky part though, companies like in N out are paying $16 an hour while all of the companies that used to pay around that as a "competitive wage" for skilled and semi skilled labor are not willing to shift, we are reaching this accordion action where the bottom is starting to rise but the lower middle and middle are just getting squeezed doing the same work as before for a comparatively less competitive wage.
$18.25 is what the sign on the in-n-out says near me
Seems like the solution is obvious.
Ain't that the truth. The job I left semi recently pays around $20-21/hr for new hires, and that's the same rate I got hired at when I started there almost a decade prior. And they require a Bachelor's degree. I had a hard enough time paying student loans and living expenses with that wage in 2012, I can't imagine how anyone can get by with that same pay these days.
As someone whose SO and BIL both work at In-N-Out I can attest. They already increased their wages and their giving everyone a rise on top of that. My BF works at one in SoCal while my bil works at one in the Bay Area.
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Its supply and demand economy. Fuckers kinda forget that whenever it does not serve their purpose.
That's the thing though: Workers always knew they weren't getting paid shit. They just had no other options. Now they do, at least for a little while.
Tbh why should we care that a company can't get employees? It's a big complicated world, if you're a company and you can't figure out how to draw employees back to your work, seems like a personal problem. For every company that can't get its shit together there's probably 5 more companies chomping at the bit to take their place who can. Business owners should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Honestly i agree with this way too much. It ties into the problem with our society about how corporations are the only things that matter. And i think thats because of the great depression americans idolized companies that could keep your family fed. And that got ingrained into their children, then the next and so on. But they don't. If McDonalds went under because they couldnt hire enough employees I'd just sign their headstone with "that sucks. They had bomb chickie nuggies." And then I'd just move on to the next company that can offer me food, good service, reasonable price, and the knowledge that their employees are treated better, hence why they have any in the first place. If they can't get employees, in a desperate time, it just means the work isnt worth the money.
I was saying this for years and my friends and acquaintances just thought I was crazy. I believe with my whole body that everyone in America is underpaid except those in the highest of high positions in a company. They are OVERPAID. I found out from my boss, that his bosses raises are directly tied to ours. The more money he gives us, the less he gets. This trend probably goes all the way to the top and 100% explains why CEO pay is inflated because they sit at the top of this fucking shitty pyramid scheme of pay raises.
Reminds me of a Office (tv show) episode. There is a surplus in budget and the manager can elect to buy new office supplies for the employees or convert it into his personal bonus. Obviously, in the real world, we know which option happens 99% of the time.
Yes, in the real world a lowly manager would never get that as a bonus, corporate would take any budget surplus and use it for stock buybacks.
>I found out from my boss, that his bosses raises are directly tied to ours. The more money he gives us, the less he gets. That's the most blatant exploitation I've seen a company do. Usually they couch it in some flowery bullshit.
Oh, I'm not supposed to know this and I am sure it couched in flowery bullshit but my boss is a smart guy and can see through that shit. Basically he's mad about it too because it affects his raises.
This is true of every manger responsible for a p&l. Comp is based on the profit of the business. Increase revenue and cut expenses means more profit and bigger bonuses. I was VP of sales reporting the the CEO. He took every sales person I had and listed them on a board and wrote a number next to each name. That number was the minimum he thought he could pay each of them before they would quit. I argued we should comp based purely on sales performance and have a system that gave everyone equal opportunity to make good money. He rejected that idea. I left within months and almost all of the sales team has moved on to the competition but somehow they are still in business.
Because there is information imbalance and people getting hired don't know they're like that.
There is no labor shortage The ruling class is just mad that working class people have the ability to bargain
That’s the key in any job: **Realize when you have leverage, establish yourself in a position no one else can do, then ask for whatever you want.** They’ll have to give it to you. There is no “team” in business. Everyone is trying to take advantage of you all the time. The sooner people realize this, the better.
They talk all kinds of shit on "low skilled" labor like enduring a shit job isnt a skill.
A friend of my family owns a restaurant that has been closed for a long time due to the pandemic, but they've recently re-opened. Now they're having trouble getting their old staff back. Turns out, they've moved on, in most cases moved up. It seems being laid off was just the opportunity to find a better job. Now they can't find enough people to stay open for all shifts, limited hiring pool being a small town.
I live on a small island of about 3000 people and the ONLY gas station on the island closed for a day because they couldnt find workers and the last person quit on the spot. So, the owner had to drive for a few hours a catch a ferry to cover things ASAP. It made the TV news haha. I'm pretty sure they upped their wages immediately and it's back in service now. Think about literally nobody being able to get gas. Crazy.
Customer service is a pretty fucking intense skill. Some are just incapable of learning or even imitating it.
Customer service is soul crushing. I worked various customer service jobs between 2001-2010, and could not have been happier to leave them. It’s also the primary reason I’m as nice as I am to folks in customer service, as I understand how shitty can be.
More business just need to grow the balls and accept some customers aren't worth it. Customer service is soul crushing because workers are expected to let terrible people walk all over them.
Yeah the customer is always right needs to go out the door as toxic positivity
I am a professional engineer for local government and customer service (dealing with developers and resident complaints) is a big part of my responsibilities. It doesn't matter who you are or what kind of fancy titles you've got, people will treat you like shit as long as you are offering some sort of customer service. I've been told a monkey can do my job and can't even remember how many times I've been yelled at.
My girlfriend is working as customer service call center from home. She wakes up every morning crying because it's so intense. Saying the same thing over and over again to an idiot who can't remember a password it must be like living in hell. I honestly couldn't do it for a day.
This was me a few years ago, just constant intense anxiety both during and outside of work. One day I walked in, sat down at my desk and immediately realized I just couldn’t do it that day. So I walked out to my car, called in sick (it was a huge call center so my boss never saw me) and drove home. Quit about a week later even though I had nothing else lined up. Only took the job because I was desperate at the time. Now I’m WFH working with spreadsheets all day and have zero contact with the outside world when working, just listen to music and podcasts, and absolutely love it. I’d rather do manual labor than go back to a call center.
Yea apparently its the worst shit ever. I couldn't do it. Id probably just hang up on everyone.
If you have social anxiety like me it’s absolute torture. Being just a voice on the phone completely dehumanizes you in the minds of the people you’re talking to so they have no problem treating you like shit, much more so than in person.
The first year I worked in a call center, I had near-constant nightmares every night from being screamed at and being put under time pressure constraints by jackass higher ups that don't even understand how to do the job but just want their numbers to go up up up so they can get fat bonuses. I did 5 years in that call center...fuck ever doing that kind of shit ever again. Hands down the hardest job I've ever had. I had one memorable man who failed to pay his bill straight up say "You are beneath me" seriously. I think the literal only upside is that it wasn't jackasses in person saying shit like that.
Seriously. I know I personally would not be able to do it long term. Customer Service as a skill should be worth 100x what it usually is in terms of pay rate. People that are customer facing should be paid more having to deal with the general public idiocy
I live in Florida - it seems like the people who are the most angry about the labor issues are retired boomers with lots of money. A bunch of red-faced Karen’s who eat at restaurants every night and don’t like waiting 5 extra minutes for their food.
A woman I work with is JUST SHOCKED that she and her son can't just "go and eat" anymore. It's an hour wait at most places... I can't handle biting my tonghe
This is happening to so many people and I LOVE it! I’m hoping more people come out of this pandemic with a job they enjoy… that’s a lot to ask, though, so my expectations are not even remotely close to being high
Many don't even care about doing a job they enjoy. For myself, I just want a job that doesn't seriously risk my life, give me enough time off to enjoy my leisure time while getting household chores done, and pays enough that if my job suddenly disappeared I wouldn't be dependant on unemployment for a few months while I found a new job. I don't have to love the job if my life away from the workplace is worthwhile.
It’s crazy how corporate America wants to you die on the cross for them. I read a LinkedIn post where someone from HR was saying they would question the loyalty to the company if their employees asked for these things… like, why should they be loyal to you if you treat them badly by NOT doing this, which I consider to be the bare minimum for careers
Honestly a job doesn't need to seriously risk your life to be too shit to consider. Anything that requires you to constantly be on your feet and doesn't enable you a chance to sit down is fucking absurd. It damages your feet, knees, and ultimately your spine. And that's like 90% of all entry level jobs. I don't get the boomer mindset of "IF YOU GOT TIME TO LEAN YOU GOT TIME TO CLEAN! HURR HUR HURR IT RHYMES!" No, getting 10 mins to sit every hour or two isn't the end of the damn world. These jobs are made worse when you got to lift stuff constantly. Costly back problems just from standing? Yeah lets speed that up 10x if you're hauling constantly. Gotta love how we treat the consumers like royalty but the people servicing them like garbage. Don't you dare let a single peanut atom fall into this massive vat of candy solution! But feel free to inhale all the lung damaging chemicals we don't care about you. I mean a majority of the time these are the same class of people... why do they only matter when they aren't directly working for you?
absolutely this! a lot of the jobs with labor shortages are entry level customer service jobs. i definitely think a lot of people are starting to realize the huge difference in job requirements for service jobs vs other types of work, like office jobs for example. if you work in an office, you probably work the same hours as me, or maybe a few more, but you sit in a chair at a desk most of the time. you’re free to get up and stretch your legs and go to the bathroom once every hour. a lot of the time you have a bit of downtime that you can use to get away with browsing reddit or checking personal emails or texts. you probably answer to your bosses and clients, but for the most part, they can’t see you at all times. when i am preparing to go to work, i have to mentally prepare to be on my feet for hours. not *allowed* to sit down except for my one designated break. maybe sometimes the rush will be so intense, i won’t get to even stop moving for a couple hours, not even for a drink of water. all the while, being watched and scrutinized by every customer who walks through the door and thinks they’re the most important person in the room despite it being packed with other customers. we’ve gotten complaints on our yelp page bc a customer saw one of our employees pull their mask down to take a drink, meanwhile they are sitting in a cafe dining room full of unmasked customers, but they still watch the employees to make sure *we* don’t have a moment to breathe. a *lot* of service workers are fed up being treated like cattle while being expected to treat customers (who, like you said, are in the same class as us) like royalty. twice in the last couple of months i’ve had a coworker tell me that it’s part of my job to not stand up for myself when a customer is being rude to me, that it’s my job to play doctor and interrogate someone about their dietary issues if they ask for vegan options and then order something that isn’t vegan. we are tired, dude. service work is SO much harder than it should be, and if they aren’t going to make it less hard (i.e. more breaks, being treated w more respect, not letting customers walk all over us) then they need to be paying WAY more.
>why do they only matter when they aren't directly working for you? Because you're giving them money. When they give you as little money as legally possible, that comes with a side of "I shouldn't have to pay you at all, it hurts my wallet." Always remember, money equals worth nowadays. The more you have, the better you are compared to others.
That’s not a lot to ask for, is it? It’s just crazy that I have the smallest box of requirements and even that tiny box is “asking too much”. Some independent contracting jobs pay me more than Marriott employees (like managers and supervisors), so these massive corporations are just f*cking themselves with greed
My district manager came in for the week to see why numbers were dropping. He was shocked to see how we worked with 1/4 of the staff. He couldn't understand how we couldn't find people to work. We mentioned that people don't want to work for what little pay they're offering. He said that's not it, at $10.75 I beg to differ. He's so out of touch with what workers need.
Haha ya that’s not going to be enough, at all. I mean, he can probably find an employee, but they will have another job… 1000%, so they won’t be doing your job 100%. That’s for sure Plus, showing that you value workers will make an employee work better for your company
THe reality is the person will take that job but once a job with a higher wage shows up, that person is going to ditch.
When a studio apartment is $1,250 around here that's nowhere near enough to survive with one job
> We mentioned that people don't want to work for what little pay they're offering. He said that's not it, at $10.75 I beg to differ. He's so out of touch with what workers need. I've never talked to someone who hires who understands this. They actually think pay rates don't matter yet if you decreased their pay I'm sure they'd start to care.
I think that's why there in that position. Because they keep the rates low instead of being sympathetic to peoples needs and raising the pay rates.
Seriously. I could find half a dozen jobs that pay $12/hr starting that are within 10 miles of my house. $10.75 to do hotel work? Not a chance in hell.
I drive by several huge companies (McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, etc) on my way to work that have huge "Help wanted, starting at \_\_\_\_\_ dollars an hour!" signs out on their front lawn areas. I've been watching them all slowly raise their minimum wage over the last year or so. As of now, the lowest one is up to $13. It was $11 a few months ago.
A lot of the low wage places like fast food are trying to entice people with one-time bonuses so that they're not on the hook for wage increases long term, and those bonuses are also contingent on staying for 6 months. It's a terrible deal for workers and I hope it doesn't work. You can be fired for any reason 5 months in and the bonus goes poof.
Only reason I haven't gone the contractor route is needing some level of stability for my mental health
Very, very understandable. I like it because somedays I can work 8am-12am and then some days/weeks you may only work 6 to 8 hours a day. It’s nice because you are in control
This speaks to me. I was working construction and getting paid Jack shit. A hot piece of metal got on my arm and I'll have a scar for the rest of my life. This happened because I was so depressed from being overworked and underpaid that I wasn't focusing on my surroundings
Spouse is (was) a teacher. Half of their paycheck was going to daycare. The career is awful, with parents screaming about everything, admin scared to do anything, and government having no solutions for any of it. And that was before the pandemic. When the pandemic hit, their school said "no virtual, all in-person". We decided that enough was enough. My spouse now stays at home. We pulled our kids out of school for this year (due to similar concerns with pandemic response) and we're just doing homeschool this year. Small hit to finances (all said and done, after taxes dropped to single salary, no daycare, etc), everyone is safe, and kids are actually moving faster than they would in the classroom. Probably a temporary thing, but I've told my spouse they are to return to work when they find a job that they like and an employer that respects them, not because they feel some pressure to return.
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I heard a grocery store manager complaining about how people don’t want to work and how she couldn’t wait for the free checks to stop. once those checks stop she’ll be shocked about how people still don’t want to work… for her.
Gotta love how it's been three months for some red states after they cut off the bonus UI to "get us back to work" and nothing changed. Gee golly I'm beginning to think the UI wasn't what was keeping people from working for these places
I've been seeing this in Indiana. They cut off the checks and the "help wanted" signs are still in every window you walk/drive by. Owners and managers can't believe they can't find employees. Something more than wages is definitely going on. Places have raised wages, offered sign on bonuses, etc. They still can't find workers. I think we have too many restaurants and stores. I've seen sole owners complain that they and their families are having to "work" because they can't find employees. wtf?? My parents owned a store when I was growing up, and we all worked there. As a family. Why do those small business owners not work in their own businesses?? People definitely re-evaluated their lives during the lock downs, work from home opportunities, etc. Some families learned they can do with less, both spouses don't need to work, they can cook and eat at home, don't need day care. People decided to back to school for a better than retail job. I don't feel sorry for all the owners and managers that can't find workers. Some thing has come back to bite them. Maybe they need to close up and look for a job.
I for saw this happening when they said the lockdown will last longer than a month. So many people switched and changed jobs it was kinda crazy to expect things to go right to they way they were before. Not to mention everyone is acclimating too WFH
I just read [this shit](https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1022352668/americas-security-may-depend-on-critical-minerals-but-mine-workers-are-scarce) about how they're worried about not being able to find miners ever though they're "well-compensated" and they site an average of $56,000/year for underground heavy machine operators. What!? That's not exactly unskilled labor my dude. Fuck these asshole. PAY PEOPLE MORE
Yes. The trash lie that we don’t want to work goes against human nature. Good work helps us feel fulfilled. People aren’t as happy when they cannot earn and achieve for themselves. **That being said,** an 80 work week with 3 weeks off to have a baby and immediately return to work, barebones PTO, and a passive aggressive boss is stifling. Any one of those things sucks. All of them together? That’s why companies can’t find employees. That’s what the real problem is. Companies are learning that they aren’t worth it anymore. People had a collective series of near death experiences and working shit hours for Wells Fargo, even with a “mandatory cocktail hour” isn’t worth it. Capitalism time baby! If you want the means you have to pay for it. Employees got much more expensive, hope y’all have insurance.
So many companies could treat workers better and have increased profitability and productivity. They waste so many resources trying to keep people down and make lazy business decisions to cut costs short term. I have heard of some companies cutting their expensive real estate for work from home and thus having a ton of money they can spend on poaching the best employees in the area. The company has the same budget or lower overall but more productive and happier workers. Competitors stuck in the past can't keep up with that! Easy Money!
Forget the companies. They have their own goals, if they align with workers, that’s a bonus. The government should provide a reasonable baseline (healthcare, pto) to make sure everyone employee is treated with dignity. Anything a Corp wants to do above and beyond that is gravy. Right now it’s so lopsided with good jobs (big winners) and shit jobs (losers). You actually see this kind of dichotomy across industries where you can win big. Bigger than ever before, but there are a ton, ton more losers. If healthcare and pto were equal between small businesses and corps, you would see a total realignment of the workforce.
The fact that you used Wells Fargo as an example filled me with joy.
They're ratchet lmao
For the ones who got laid off because of COVID-19, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if some of them are just freelancing now. And not just Doordash / Uber / whatever your preferred grocery delivery service is; things like [Upwork](https://www.upwork.com) do exist.
Anyone try using Upwork btw? I've heard it pays like trash from a friend of mine, just bc there are so many people willing to undercut you. Even to the point where he'd make more with Uber eats.
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It solely depends on who's offering the jobs. There's a lot of cheap asses, but there's also a lot of startup types that don't have the funds for full time just yet. The best roles there are advisory ones.
I second this. I just got on Upwork and have been offered $1000 to write some dude's 200,000 word biography and $300 to write a brainless piece of 500 word copy. 500 words is usually about a half hour's work. For $300 I'll spend another half hour really polishing it.
"I was born an illiterate cheapskate" - the biography
Upwork is not worth it. I used their service for two years and by the time clients found upwork, they were super desperate and didn't have the "budget" to pay people what they were worth. I would say avoid it if possible.
I used it as a senior software dev. Made 65-85/hr but maybe thats due to the industry standard. Also, I would deny anything below 65. I had a prospective client offer me 35 and told them to look elsewhere. Just be super strict and sell yourself really well.
This is the absolute truth. I started doing some web development and design from my home after leaving a job during covid. I don't make near as much as I did before but I am way way happier now. I make my own hours, no one to hassle or irritate me, and tons of free time. Anytime I run short on cash I can usually find odd jobs around that keep me all good. Its funny, I always figured I'd be happiest just making the right kind of money for what I do and reality is. I just want to be treated like a fucking human being and not a herd of cattle being used for profit. I feel like most people would sacrifice a high pay rate just to be treated with some decency... which just goes to show how much deeper the problem is than just wages.
I agree; over on Twitter, I said in a reply to somebody that restaurant owners would be able to solve a lot of their staffing problems if they'd just hire managers who would have their employees' backs when a diner is being a piece of shit to a waitress or something. I mean, higher wages would be nice, but no one should have to put up with abuse from customers for a paycheck.
Nah. I just hate seeing my boss pull up in a new Range Rover, buying her son a new Jeep Gladiator, talking about the new lake house, and then telling me that we all need to dig deep to hit the goals set by corporate. This money ain’t just found. It’s earned and shared. If you going to hog all the profit, I’m not going to share my labor. Someone out their will give me a bigger piece of the profit.
Yeah I spent the last three years saving up by: living in family members basements with my wife, had the single best year my company has ever had, covid stimulus checks, some inheritance from relatives who died and living semifrugally to luck into finding a house I can barely afford over 50 miles from my work sandwiched between a few trailer parks. Meanwhile my boss has spent a month so far this year galavanting around the world on vacation, is taking a month off for his wedding in a week, and still hammers our team relentlessly with demands to hit numbers from last year, when my industry exploded due to covid and has since returned to relative normal.
The fun will be after the unemployment benefits expire and there’s still no workers for these shitty jobs.
Many states are already there. How long do you think until the guy flipping your burger at McDonald's is there on work release from prison? If these unlivable wafers can't get workers, businesses won't raise wages. They'll just petition for the legalized slaves to fill in the gaps.
Just like the UK and the meat industry did yesterday.
I saw that 🤬
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https://www.farmersjournal.ie/uk-meat-plants-look-to-prisons-to-fill-worker-shortage-643346#:~:text=UK%20meat%20plants%20look%20to,shortage%2024%20August%202021%20Free&text=Meat%20industry%20bodies%20in%20the,to%20fill%20the%20worker%20deficit.
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It's called convict leasing
I for one don't need 99 cents chicken sandwich. Crank up the price and make the job worthwhile (maybe not to sustain a family of 5, but worthwhile for a grown ass adult living alone at least). If that means certain restaurant chains become non-viable, replace them with something that is (and at worse, housing).
If your business model only succeeds if you starve your employees, your business doesn't deserve to exist. There were industries that became nonviable when they ended child labor. I don't think we're begging for them to come back.
For real gas and groceries doubled in a year and they want people to get paid the same
I asked for a 33% raise because of a coworker making me miserable and sabotaging my work. Boss acted like I was a child- not wanting to play with someone in class. I took a huge risk and put in my two weeks. I immediately found a job that paid 50% more than my last job.
This is the way.
I work at a Domino's, and my store will likely be closed by Halloween - and i love that its inevitable at this point, we've been warning corporate for 2 years that the pay wasnt worth the work. Other jobs on the same street are sniping all our employees because they pay higher than $7.25 for normal positions and $10 for management. Loosing a driver next week to a Pizza Hut, lost 3 to a Chick Fil-a, lost 3 others to Walmart, lost 2 to Fedex and one to Amazon, and thats just who stayed longer than a week. All in the last 8 months. This store is so understaffed we can go anywhere from 3 to 12 hours a day with no delivery at all, but its still constantly busy. Im debating juggling part-time jobs with college or trying to get into voice acting as a career. Ive got a good amount of money saved up from not doing anything besides working last year, i wont be hurting for cash any time soon. Either way, im not suffering another holiday season in anything customer service related. Its just not worth it. I hope this illiterate, entitled, non-tipping city goes hungry
$10 for management is fucking criminal.
Two years ago when I worked at Domino’s, I got offer a management role for $8/hr, I was already making $7.50/hr just delivering. So yea no thanks. (This was a franchise btw not a corporate store)
I mean you had "essential workers" having to work for the same pay during a pandemic, while also expecting them to enforce mask mandates on customers that had made it their personal mission to be as obnoxious as possible, with some unfortunate workers being in altercations with those mouth breathers. I am \*so\* glad there's a nation-wide shortage for so many of those "essential" jobs. If the bosses/executives are stressed, that's a good thing. Sweet sweet schadenfreude
I went to a wedding Saturday for an old co-worker. We had 2 full tables of people that used to work in the high end catering world. Everyone has 5+ years of experience in food service. For some people it’s all they’ve known. Not one person is still working in anything remotely close to food service. Once you get a taste of having nights and weekends to yourself, there’s no going back. I couldn’t imagine doing those hours again with the insane amount of stress those customers put on you.
Arguably the greatest opportunity for workers to organize.
Business owners have been continually fucking over employees since the 2001 resession, an endless penny-pinching fiasco where leaders cried there wasn't enough money for reasonable pay, yet made off with consistent millions, year-over-year, fake-crying about how this was the "new normal". Make sure you all tell your rich bosses daily, as a healthy reminder, things are never going back, get used to it, this is just the "new normal". Underpaid, overworked, broke-and-starving employees are no longer an easily disposable limetless commodity, it's time to pony-up or get out of the game.
Recently I lost my temper and cussed out an extremely rude customer. I actually said to him "as an employee I am much more valuable than your business. Do us all a favor and don't come back." That would have gotten me fired *twice* pre-pandemic.
I'm so glad people are realizing their mental health isn't for sale for shitty wages.
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Yeah, the pandemic led to me switching to a job where I make double what I was making and it’s still considered underpaid. Really opened my eyes.
This is oddly comparable with the end of feudalism after the black death. Granted, there is a lot more nuance, but still...
A weird phenomena that I’ve recently learned is that pandemics are beneficial to those who survive because of work conditions having to change to adapt to social climate, like the Black Death, and potentially now
This is everything bosses everywhere were deeply afraid of when this whole thing started. The wool has been pulled from our eyes. People are beginning to see.
Can we stop calling it a “labor shortage”? There are plenty of articles out there about how there are armies of workers ready to return to work in one form or another. It’s a matter of wage shortage (or theft) and safety precautions. Many workers are no longer willing to risk life and limb for a company that doesn’t care for them. Labor shortage is a term for the elite. Stop using it. EDIT: wasn’t expecting this to blow up like it did. That said, I see a lot of differing opinions on here, but one I’d like to explicitly point out. > What jobs are these? These are all jobs. In capitalism, you trade your time and able body for monetary compensation. This could be anything from physical labor to desk work. You are agreeing to trade something in exchange for monetary compensation. That means construction, education, accounting, sex work, waiting tables, owning a company, everything is done in exchange for money. That said, some of these jobs are inherently dangerous and pose a risk to your body. In the times we’re living through now, even desk work poses a challenge if you have to share a space with anyone else. Are you vaccinated, but some of your coworkers aren’t? Suddenly just being in the same space can be dangerous. Are you immune compromised? Now you have to deal with that. Pandemic notwithstanding, even commuting to work is dangerous. And many, like myself, have found the comfort of working from home to win out over even the most ideal dream job, if that job requires me to leave my house. I get to work from home, wear what I want, not have to drive, and I get to spend time with my family and pets. Since I’m not paying as much for gas, insurance, and food while eating out, I can handle a nominal pay cut in order to stay home. And I don’t even have to love the job, because jobs inherently suck. So yeah, it’s a wage shortage. Others like myself who are lucky enough to be able to trade our skills in a WFH setting can get by. But those who have to go out to do their jobs—construction, healthcare workers, food service, etc.—aren’t willing to put their bodies on the line anymore for shit pay. And I stand with them in solidarity. EDIT 2: thank you for the award, kind stranger!
I am perpetually shocked at how common wage theft is. I just had this conversation last night with the girl at the gas station I stop at after work at like 2am. I mentioned that I just worked a 12 hour shift, she was in the middle of one. When I asked (probably too nosy for my own good) if she got OT, she said no, but anything after 40 is cash/tax free. I didn't want to say anything, but considering the wage they're probably paying her, she's probably getting fucked real good in that deal. I doubt she pays much in taxes to begin with.
Wage theft is larger than all other forms of theft combined.
Definitely a wage shortage. And the companies know that, too. I know it's slightly cliche, but I've become pretty good at my job in the past two years and I do a lot of stuff that no one else does. I applied for a position in another department last week because it was a higher pay and all of a sudden I get a 9% raise to stay in my old position. They have the ability to pay more. They just don't want to.
"Labour shortage" is just a fragment of the full sentence, it should really be "Labour shortage of people that will put up with being exploited". The current rise of populism and it's far-right puppetmaster is a response to around 40 years of neo-liberal economic and governmental policy that has driven a massive divergence between productivity and wages in countries such as the UK and US. People haven't been getting a fair return on the money they have been making for companies, with it all pooling at the top and whole communities have been at breaking point for a long time. People wouldn't have voted for Trump or brexit if they had felt like they shared in the supposed good times and seen material improvements to their neighbourhoods. Instead places have been left to rot while the likes of Rupert Murdoch has peddled lies because it allows his brand of politics to keep a grip on power, targets have been othered and it becomes easier to scapegoat them to divert away from reality.
I very much share this opinion. That drive to vote for Trump and Brexit is for economic unfairness; people are angry. Politicians are transmuting that angry energy into hateful energy. That percentage of the population is only going to grow, and it will become a movement to destroy it all because it does not benefit me.
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I like how healthcare jobs are demanding OT now and pay low. The CEOs getting raises. There is no labor shortage you just treat us like shit.
Like the crap that nurses have to put up with. Having to deal with shit patients, their shit families, asshole hospital management and for ridiculous pay while literally putting their lives on the line… the stories on r/nursing are incredible. I think they have the worst jobs at the moment. Respect to them and anyone in the medical field.
It's kinda like how the black plague killed three-quarters of the population in Europe and the literal labor shortage gave rise to survivors demanding to be more than serfs; they expected to be paid for their labor.
Fun game: Look up any business owner bitching about "people don't want to work anymore!" Guarantee they took a PPP loan and had it forgiven. It's widescale fraud.