Some industries are labor intensive. If labor prices exceed a certain level, these business go under. It's not some shill for businesses. It's happened to entire industries.
There needs to be some happy balance between affordable prices and affordable labor.
If for instance, a meal costs around $25 today, then they would have to increase the price to $37 (or a $12 increase). Looking at one regular dish I get at a chain restaurant, I've seen its price increase from $23 to $32 in in the last year. I still eat there about as frequently as I used to. Would I still get it if it was $34.50 assuming the same labor cost? I most likely still would.
On the other hand, if the restaurant decides not to increase pay and has trouble with staffing, along with increase wait times, errors in fulfilling the order, food not prepared well, then I most likely won't eat there as often, if at all.
[1] https://www.lightspeedhq.com/blog/labor-cost-guidelines-rest...
How many of those customers would switch to eating at home? If a single restaurant changed their prices like that, then they would certainly lose business, but if every restaurant in the area did it, then people would have to collectively change their eating habits. My guess is a lot of them may not.
Plus, the 50% increase doesn't happen all at once. It happens over a longer period of time, meaning that prices will gradually increase. That gradual increase won't drive customers away as much as a sudden price increase should.
The biggest cost for small restaurants is rent. During COVID all of their dine-in traffic disappeared. At the same time, they got zero breaks on their rent so they ended up paying out the nose and getting nothing for their money. They could’ve handled the same orders operating out of a cheap ghost kitchen in some warehouse district.
Even outside of the black swan that was COVID, running a restaurant is skating on thin ice. Most don’t make it and those who do tend to be high-end restaurants with longstanding wealthy clientele. These fancy places haven’t had any trouble at all hiring servers because the tips are very generous. But for mom and pop taco shop? That’s a tough one!
Compare this to food you buy in the grocery store - you still need to buy food, even if food prices double overnight. You may buy less of it and pick cheaper brands, but your fundamental consumption habits will not change much.
The representative who came around and explained this to everybody waiting at the conveyor belt seemed genuinely confused by the fact that they were unable to hire people to do this work, despite the fact that this very industry has been in the media for months/years now, with reports of poor conditions, strikes, exploitatative outsourcing, etc
Pay more. Get more. That is the only solution. Strikes also help.
Well. Unless you are american and your president makes it illegal to strike. (Railroad workers, most recently.)
How exactly were they forced?
Do they or their family play zero role in this and they are just “forced”.
If people were “forced”, skilled and unskilled immigrants wouldn’t be lining up to enter the US.
The only way this can be fixed is acknowledging a tiny minuscule bit of personal responsibility. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/07/us-education...
Until we have singularity and order around AI to build stuff out of thin air there is a cost to existence in society.
By making employment less sticky (Hello covid), people who felt forced to work stopped, and chose to do something else.
"Personnal responsibility" can exist even if most of our decisions are psychological nudges.
That's not the problem, though. The article indicates that there is not much change in the service sector, aside from some increases in sick leave. As it tells, the problem is that the service sector has exploded to want many more workers than ever before. As soon as you fill one position, two more appear out of nowhere.
> the economist cant seem to figure out why nobody wants this fresh new hell anymore.
If anything, they can't figure out why the service sector is growing by leaps and bounds even amid efforts (e.g. rising interest rates) to crash the economy. As the article tells, once it finally does crash then that rapid explanation will halt and labour issues will start to correct.
yes, yes this is true. theyre all either dead or done. we spent decades forcing them to work for tips and bare minimum wage, fighting dirty to keep them out of unions and spending millions to avoid paying them a living wage, and in the last two years the straw that broke the camels back was demanding they put their lives at risk slinging chili's baby back ribs with no health insurance or paid time off during a pandemic where they also have to play covid police to largely ungrateful customers. when the time came for raises bonuses and benefits, we threw together about three months of service-sector hero porn, televised ads golf clapping the dwindling masses of exhausted underpaid slaves for their "Sacrifice" as we laud them for their heroic efforts to rack up back-pay rent debt theyll have to service the minute the government decides covids over because its too expensive.
so yeah we're all out of people willing to do this kind of work because it sucks, and the economist cant seem to figure out why nobody wants this fresh new hell anymore.