Could the worker shortage US business is facing be because of immigration

[applegrove]

enforcement going back to Obama (who was strict) and then Trump ( cruel)? Also all the covid victims has got to put a damper on employment. Then there are people whose kids are at home. Think of all the uncertanty too.There are people who are reassesing their lives. There are so many reasons why it is hard to find an employee, not just too many benefits. I heard some msm who said the too many benefits made up a 7th of those potential employees who are not working.

[Sanity Claws]

1. That and lower birth rate

This is something that many countries are facing.

[applegrove]

2. Yes. And the baby boomers are retiring.

[SharonAnn]

3. And boomers retiring. And lack of schools/child care so someone has to be home with the kids.

[jmbar2]

4. I suspect that's true in the building trades at least.

When I was in college, most college guys took summer jobs in construction.

Later, at least in Texas, those jobs were mostly filled by immigrants. They now are the most skilled at it. College kids today likely don't want to go up on roofs in summer weather.

[Baked Potato]

5. If you mean the worker shortage primarily in Restaurant and Hospitality

I think the shortage is from low pay and poor working conditions. Skilled worker shortages, especially construction is another problem brewing.

"This is not a worker shortage, this is a wage shortage," said Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California-Berkeley and president of One Fair Wage, an advocacy group pushing to raise the subminimum wage for tipped workers.

"The restaurant business, inherently and pre-covid, was a toxic workplace," Whalen said. "You had an enormous wage gap between the back of the house and front of the house; rampant alcohol and drug problems; harassment issues; you've got people living in or near poverty working hourly jobs with no guarantees."

Of course the Republican line is the opposite.

"What has happened in our society, where a paycheck isn't enough incentive to go to work?" Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told Insider. "We supplanted that incentive with the incentive to stay home, and we need to end that incentive."

Johnson also dismissed the idea that businesses needed to raise wages, saying, "Why would anybody need an additional incentive to go to work?

"The incentives have always been there: to take a paycheck, to have the dignity of earning your own success and providing for your family."

[jimfields33]

8. I would love to have them get 15 bucks an hour and no more tipping

With no more tipping you can raise the price of the meal and customers still make out. Workers do too.

[Iggo]

10. What do you have against tipping?

[Ms. Toad]

12. Tipping directly shifts the obligation to pay workers a fair wage to the customer

and makes what a person earns dependent on things that should not be the basis for determining how much a worker makes like: being regularly assigned a breakfast shift v. a dinner shift, appearance, willingness to flirt with the customers, whether alcohol is served, etc.

A much fairer system builds a reasonable pay rate into the price of the goods sold.

[Iggo]

15. Oh, you mean employers underpaying employees...

...and blaming it on tipping while at the same time counting on tipping to make up for the shit wages they pay.

But in the hopeful eventuality that these employees end up getting paid a decent wage, I don’t understand why people want to abolish tipping. Then it wouldn’t be the employer fucking the employee. It’d be the customer doing the fucking.

[Ms. Toad]

16. Yes - because they are allowed to.

Under federal law, all that employers are required to pay is $2.13 an hour.

Other reasons to abolish tipping - most people who earn money via tips don't pay social security (or other) taxes on the money they take in as tips. While most don't realize it at the time - this means that they they will receive considerably less in social security when they retire (and many won't be able to retire). It also means that not only are we forking out tip money to compensate for too-low wages, we are also paying disproportionately more taxes to make up for the taxes not paid on the tipped income.

I'd love to think that everyone reports their tip income - but I know from working as a tax preparer that virtually no one does. The system that permits employers to underpay them, money in cash that is untraceable, all leads many tipped employees to believe they are justified in cheating the system. And I resent that - becuase I feel compelled to tip (because I know the reality of minimum wage law) - knowing that not only am I paying the compensation that their employers are not paying, I'm also paying extra to provide the safety net they will need (in part) because they are not reporting (and paying taxes on) their income.

Frankly, I want to pay a fair price for the goods and services I buy - not a price in which I guess at what is fair all the while resenting subsidizing an arbitrary and capricious system that rewards bad behavior (both on the part of the employer and the employee) and leaves me footing the bill.

[JI7]

11. Tipping is voluntary so why get rid of it ?

Many don't tip right now either.

[Ms. Toad]

13. It really isn't voluntary for anyone with a conscience.

Employees in tipped positions can be paid as little as $2.13/hour. If you don't tip, they earn less than the regular minimum wage.

[JI7]

14. If we relied on conscience we wouldn't have this situation

my point is that they should be paid minimum wage at least which they do in California. And people can still tip if they want to which is what already happens with tips.

[Ms. Toad]

17. We do rely on conscience now.

If we didn't, employers would be obligated to pay the same wage to tipped employees as to other employees.

If that were the case, I would stop tipping. I expect goods and services to be priced fairly - and to pay an amount that is sufficient to pay employees for their work. Just as I am paid for my work.

[JI7]

18. That's not relying on conscience though. Employers don't care if people don't tip.

It's all just an excuse for them to not pay for employees.

[Ms. Toad]

19. The conscience of patrons, as I said in my first response.

Employers don't have to care. They are legally permitted to pay as low as $2.13/hour. Those of us with a conscience are coerced to make up the difference. The only other option, for anyone with a conscience, is to choose not to eat out.

Fair pay should not depend on the conscience of the customer.

[doc03]

6. I walk into Chic fa la I am greeted "Good morning sir

how may I help you". A employee or manager comes around ask if everything is Ok and would you want another coffee. Same thing at Wendy's they are polite and get your order right. Nether one of them seams to be short of staff. Sheetz is another one that doesnt seem to be that short of workers. At McDonald's it is total kaous they have nobody on the register you have to order off the kiosk or wait 20 minutes and about 1/2' the time they screw up your order. Then they always have the excuse we are working short of staff. Makes me think there must be some reason people just don't want to work there.
Maybe Americans just don't want to work where they are treated like crap.

[underpants]

7. Chic fella is just printing money

True the service there (hey the family is aware but we like it) is outstanding. Plenty of staff so no one is stressed to a breaking point and I’m sure it simply a workplace culture thing - there are expectations held up by the staff. They have franchise owned delivery cars here that’s how much money they are making.

[Treefrog]

25. They do a booming business, and no matter how long the line at the drive thru is, they have it so

well organized that it moves very quickly. I’m not much of a meat eater, but they do know how to run a business.

[jimfields33]

9. I love all 3 of those businesses

I frequent them as much as possible. I happen to like being treated like there happy to see me. Wawa’s I also find very customer friendly. Publix as well. It’s not rocket science to treat customers respectfully.

Go to McDonald’s and they act like you are a bother. Who needs that?

[obamanut2012]

24. You love and frequent Chick-Fil-A?

Interesting.

[Blue_true]

20. It is complicated.

Companies have been busily laying off 55+ aged skilled workers in the last 10 years. Many of those workers have simply taken early retirement once they reached 62 and likely won’t renter the workforce.

Two parent families may have used the Covid slowdown to reassess their priorities. The mate making the smallest salary may have simply chosen to stay home and care for the kids. Unless a person is making over $15 per hour, daycare bills for 2 kids eat up pretty much all after tax earnings - why bother with a commute, parking fees, lunch bills, job site politics when one person just staying home and caring for the kids get the family to the same place financially?

[KentuckyWoman]

21. There is no worker shortage.

There is a pay rate shortage. Raise wages and benefits. Treat employees like valued assets. Bam problem solved.

Work is a commodity just like eggs or cars. I sell my labor for the best price I can get someone to pay. If the pay is not enough to cover the extra expenses of workin.... 2nd car, childcare, stress on the family, hiring help for elderly parents, etc, then I drop out of the market.

Employers need to pay enough to make it worth working again. Money, benefits, time off, working conditions etc.

[area51]

23. +1 n/t

[Klaralven]

22. They probably can't find the quality of workers they want at the wages they want to pay.

They're looking for workers like the ones they kept, not like the ones they let go.