business

Millions of Americans are jobless, yet firms struggle to hire

30 Comments
By Julie CHABANAS

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Full-time restaurant workers in the US don't make enough money to pay the rent on an apartment that doesn't have shootings outside at night.

19 ( +21 / -2 )

How about America stops the practice of tipping and restaurants start paying their waitstaff a living wage?

17 ( +18 / -1 )

A quarter of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, well ahead of Europe and many other major economies

The people who are fully vaccinated are retired or at the end of their careers. Employers with good pay and good benefits aren't exactly trying to hire 60+ yr olds for $120K/yr salaries.

Because of the way Social Security benefits are calculated using the salaries for the last 10 working years, during those last years, it might be better NOT to work instead of taking a position at 50% the prior salary.

As long as govt benefits last, many people won't go back to work. They live paycheck-to-paycheck and have learned to get by on much less the last 16 months.

We don't get any govt benefits - except ACA bills that are 4x higher now then they were pre-ACA. No interest or need to return to a regular job that isn't 100% telecommute with perhaps 1 meeting a quarter in an office somewhere.

The world has changed, at least for information workers.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

egads man!Today  09:27 am JST

How about America stops the practice of tipping and restaurants start paying their waitstaff a living wage?

The US is slow to change at almost everything. Some people are still fighting The Civil War, and let's even bring up the topic of the metric system.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

What to risk getting covid for $7 an hour??

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Try paying a lot more money to your staff in a ever changing world due to COVID.

Businesses can not expect people to work at the same low salaried jobs post-COVID.

Also, people are much more intelligent that you may think in that they have started their own home based businesses and do not need or want your low paying jobs anymore.

Wake up and smell the money!

"Millions of Americans are jobless, yet firms struggle to hire..."

5 ( +7 / -2 )

But I will ty my best to uplift BIDEN......

well that isnt hard to do with the economic mess left over by the last president, record job losses, record 7.8 trillion added to the deficit, record number of Amercians on food stamps

4 ( +7 / -3 )

when a decent wage is offered

What is “decent” comes down to each individual and their circumstances.

Certainly a “higher” price for something though, will incentivize more supply of it.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

It is more like legal slavery than a job. In red America there are no legal protections for workers.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

They can't get a job cuz they're too fat. Why hire a liability??

2 ( +3 / -1 )

And the job situation here is pathetic too. 63% of workers work part time arubaito jobs at ¥721 an hour. 

Where does that number come from? The figures I can find show a part time employment rate in Japan of about 25%.

https://data.oecd.org/emp/part-time-employment-rate.htm

2 ( +2 / -0 )

There are non political practical reasons many are not able to re-enter the workforce. Our school district for example is only teaching in person classes half days Monday - Thursday. School on Fridays is still by distance learning. The usual before and after school programs so vital to working parents are not yet re-established. Some are being done over the internet. All of this means parents with kids are still not entirely free to spend the whole day outside the home working. At least one parent has to stay home much of the day to provide child care and to manage distance learning.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I worked at the most expensive steakhouse in my town once. Waitstaff all drove to work. They were all old ladies who’d been on the job for 30 years. Home owners. They’d make 300-500 bucks in tips on a typical Saturday night busy shift.

The exception that proves the rule. How many other restaurants in your city paid their wait staff that much or had customers tipping that kind of money? I will bet none or at most one other. The great majority of restaurant staff get minimum wage and wait staff often are paid much less as they receive tips instead. Side work such as wrapping utensils in napkins and the like is often unpaid. Cashiers do not receive tips either and having to work the register is unpopular as a result. Managers in many restaurants steal tips that are added to the total on credit card payments. That is certainly true of the big name chain coffee shop where I live and where my wife worked for some years and seems to be a common feature of big chain restaurants. Unless the customer gives the server cash you can basically assume the server will not receive all or part of the tip you think you are leaving. This is real world, not your right wing fantasy world.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It is more like legal slavery than a job. In red America there are no legal protections for workers.

The job isn't guaranteed anywhere, but OHSA rules still apply. That is true in over-regulated states too. https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/standards

1 ( +1 / -0 )

After a tonne of repatriations and closed borders, immigrant worker numbers are low and cannot increase seasonally.

And some folk are simply unemployable. If you owned a business, you would not want to employ some of the people who answer your job adverts.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Vaccines are free and now easily available ........  If you have been vaccinated why the hand wringing? 

Vaccines only became readily available in our area last week. I received my first dose of vaccine last Friday. I have to wait at least another 28 days to receive the second dose and two weeks after that before I can be reasonably sure immunity is established. So for our family six more weeks before we can consider ourselves mostly immune to Covid-19. I say mostly because nothing is 100%.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

That job is why I tip well

Still not a good reason to tip anyone.

(That job is) why I'm polite to everyone in every restaurant even when things go badly or they have a bad day.

Why shouldn't you be polite to everyone in every restaurant anyway?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Vaccines are free and now easily available, so I don't understand this statement from the article - "there is huge concern among job seekers about workplace health and safety". If you have been vaccinated why the hand wringing? The amount of people with break through contagion is not, as VirusRex says a "rational" worry.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I worked at the most expensive steakhouse in my town once. Waitstaff all drove to work. They were all old ladies who’d been on the job for 30 years. Home owners. They’d make 300-500 bucks in tips on a typical Saturday night busy shift.

People don't want to worry about someone else's livelihood while trying to enjoy dinner. That's another reason why dining out in Japan is so great!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Money talks. Everything else walks.

Most restaurant workers have found other jobs in other fields and the pandemic is NOT over. So still not enough customers with tips and still too much risk. And everyone of those fields listed in this article as being the hardest to find workers are low paying, public interaction jobs.

Money talks.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Vaccines are free and now easily available, so I don't understand this statement from the article - "there is huge concern among job seekers about workplace health and safety". If you have been vaccinated why the hand wringing?

About 2 weeks ago, everyone over 16 yrs old was allowed to seek out and sign up for vaccines here. Prior to then, you had to be 55+ yrs old or have one of the medical conditions on their list to sign up.

So .... now there are 100M people in the US trying for daily appointments at vaccine super sights. In my state, there are 6M people still to be vaccinated and about 10 super-vaccination locations in the entire state. Weekly vaccine deliveries are still less than needed, so supply is limited. 2-Shot vaccines take 5-6 weeks before you are considered "fully vaccinated". I've had both shots now, but still need 10 more days for full effectiveness to happen.

People living paycheck-to-paycheck avoid thinking about problems and being proactive. They are overwhelmed and their history has taught them either that someone will help or there's nothing they can do, or they have crushing debt already because they've been out of work for months and are 6+ months behind on rent. It is enough to make we want to stop and go read a fantasy book to escape. Good thing the local library reopened last month.

For 3 yrs, I worked as a dishwasher - no tips - minimum wage. In that time, I received 1 tip from a former dishwasher. He got a soda refill and put $20 in quarters into the glass because he knew only the dishwasher would touch it. The wait staff was paid less than minimum wage there, but they got tips - which seemed to bump their hourly take-home to about 2-3x minimum wage. The cooks were paid more, because they directly controlled food costs and taste. All of them had started as dishwashers. All the cooks at that job used gateway drugs, including both the store manager and assistant managers. This was a long time ago. Nobody working there was getting rich, except the restaurant owner who didn't actually work there. Most employees lived with other members of their family to save on living expenses. None of them had nice cars and most actually shared a vehicle with someone else - or caught rides.

That job is why I did everything I could to got to college and graduate with a useful degree. That job is why I tip well and why I'm polite to everyone in every restaurant even when things go badly or they have a bad day. Well - I'm polite to ALMOST everyone. I try to consider what terrible news someone may have gotten to make them behave in a bad way before assuming they are just mean people and should be fired.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"They're not in a rush to put themselves back in a vulnerable position

Having a job is a vulnerable position huh.

Yep better to be dependent on a government, which may one day cut your benefit payments instead. Much better idea for sure.

If I were an employer, I know I would prefer the proactive type myself...

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

US economy is an accident waiting to happen.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I am deeply scrutinizing this article to find a way to criticize the former president Trump and how to elevate Biden.

It is not easy ..

Because the social media is telling the truth and how hard I try they will find the truth. ( tears)

But I will ty my best to uplift BIDEN......

-2 ( +7 / -9 )

From a logical point of view....if you could do such an opened sophisticated job, you won’t get adequately paid, would even keep Biden and entourage in their power and seats, so you’ll better wait a bit instead plus having the merit of avoiding corona. And if you’re a Biden supporter or just came down from the trees out of the BLM protest jungle or from the real jungle, you surely aren’t capable of doing any sophisticated job that could support the economy such to be able withstanding rival China. No, you can’t even wash dishes from 9 to 5 in that case, no way. But anyway, both strategies just will bring America back again, back to the roots of an undeveloped new world.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

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