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Post by katlady on Mar 17, 2022 23:25:04 GMT
Lot of places are having a hard time finding workers. I am just wondering where are all those people who used to work those jobs? What kind of jobs are they doing now?
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Post by aj2hall on Mar 17, 2022 23:29:07 GMT
Some have not returned to work - retired, adjusted to one income, staying home to care for children or elderly and sadly, died of Covid. Others used the opportunity to find a different job, a lot of people shifted away from restaurants & retail. Maybe it's time to start paying servers minimum wages?
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peabay
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,891
Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
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Post by peabay on Mar 17, 2022 23:36:10 GMT
I say that to myself all the time "where did everyone go?"
I think it's as mentioned above - and I think some people have just thought "life is too short to work a crap job and be treated rudely by jerky customers" and got ones they like more.
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Post by littlemama on Mar 17, 2022 23:39:07 GMT
They are out looking for jobs with better pay and benefits, better PTO, better treatment, and flexible scheduling- or they have already found those jobs. After living with stagnant wages for 30 years while the top people got rich, people are done with corporate greed.
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Post by Laurie on Mar 17, 2022 23:41:16 GMT
We knew all along the baby boomers retiring was going to be a problem with the workforce. My speculation is a lot of them have chose early retirement during Covid so we are seeing the pains earlier than anticipated. I know of a handful of people that opted to retire early during Covid because like peabay said they realized life is too short. That is my thoughts on this.
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Post by busy on Mar 17, 2022 23:43:20 GMT
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Post by padresfan619 on Mar 17, 2022 23:53:15 GMT
I’m one of those 2 million women who lost her job and didn’t go back to work. I’m saving our family a ton of money by being a SAHM.
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Post by busy on Mar 17, 2022 23:54:24 GMT
I’m one of those 2 million women who lost her job and didn’t go back to work. I’m saving our family a ton of money by being a SAHM. There are also a lot of women who want to go back, but have been unable to. If you're not looking for work anymore, then you're not included in that count - those are the women who lost their jobs and are looking for work again.
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Post by katlady on Mar 17, 2022 23:54:42 GMT
Maybe it's time to start paying servers minimum wages? In California, servers get minimum wage. There is still a shortage here.
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Mar 17, 2022 23:55:30 GMT
The workers are here.
We are job searching.
Going to interviews at one location, being hired on the spot, only to be told that the position that is *aKTcUaLlY* open is in a location thirty miles away. (Yes, that happened to me)
We are working multiple jobs.
We are trying to go back to school.
And when we dare to ask for anything even close to resembling an almost liveable wage, our hours are cut, and we are systematically replaced by teens, who often (and understandably) leave for better jobs, easier jobs, jobs that work for their lifestyle, college, or choosing not to work anymore.
Also, blame the corporations for those understaffed stores and restaurants. It's not employees refusing to show up and work. There are very few available hours.
The store I work at has 19 cashiers, and 27 warehouse/backroom staff. There are only six cashiers given hours (at all) this week, and 14 warehouse people given any hours.
Of those fortunate enough to have ANY hours, we have three shifts, between 8 & 13 hours total.
The two salaried managers have to fill in on the registers and breaking down truck & stocking shelves, plus do what managers do.
The problem is corporate greed. Full stop.
How about CEOs get a salary decrease and lower level employees make a living wage? Oh no, can't do that because stockholders might not become even more wealthy.
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Post by padresfan619 on Mar 17, 2022 23:58:26 GMT
I’m one of those 2 million women who lost her job and didn’t go back to work. I’m saving our family a ton of money by being a SAHM. There are also a lot of women who want to go back, but have been unable to. If you're not looking for work anymore, then you're not included in that count - those are the women who lost their jobs and are looking for work again. I an looking for work now that my son is a year old - infant daycare was impossible for us to afford with my salary so I stayed home. Now that he’s a year old it’s more manageable.
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Post by mags243 on Mar 18, 2022 0:04:53 GMT
I work in healthcare, and my hospital lost a lot of employees since Covid. Many of the people who were eligible to retire did. Several women I know, through work and in my personal life, had to stay home because of virtual learning or due to child care issues and just never went back. I think it was really eye opening to see how little difference that second income made.
As for the jobs teens usually hold, most of my kids' friends did not work during the pandemic, and still don't have jobs. I don't know if it's discomfort with Covid, coddling kids, or what. Mine worked and made $$ for school, but they are the exception in our circle. One son works at McDonald's when he is home, and has gotten 3 raises since he started. He's now at $17 an hour, with as many hours as he wants.
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Post by melanell on Mar 18, 2022 0:05:52 GMT
I just saw a news clip about the "great retirement" and how a higher number of people are retiring early than before. Then they talked about how it's hurting the economy to have all of those workers gone and I couldn't help but think that so many older workers feel under appreciated. And now suddenly people are realizing that they needed those employees after all.
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Post by tealpaperowl on Mar 18, 2022 0:06:07 GMT
I was wondering this too. Now that the extra unemployment is gone, how are these people living? I guess they must have adjusted to a lower income household.. or won the lotto!
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Post by ~summer~ on Mar 18, 2022 0:09:44 GMT
Just anecdotally I know friends/coworkers who just decided to retire or not work at all. I was going to speculate that between Mexico’s strong economy and the Trump years migration from Mexico has slowed dramatically but it doesn’t look like that is true. My kid is extremely unusual among his friends - he’s the only one with a job - he worked fast food all through the pandemic - he said almost all his coworkers are Spanish speaking. He now works for a local food place and makes over $25/hour for much ‘easier’ work compared to fast food which he said is extremely tiring - you basically never rest and no tips
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Post by melanell on Mar 18, 2022 0:13:18 GMT
But beyond the retiring employees, I think there are some that just realized they could happily get by without working----at least for other people. The people working an extra part time job for "fun" money, people who started successful businesses of their own during the pandemic, 2 working adult households who learned that their overall income didn't dip down as much as they expected it would if one adult didn't work, etc.
When people go 2 years with reduced spending due to a lack of open places to spend, they may start to realize that they can live without things that they previously thought they needed. And that they are happier not going in to their old job anymore.
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johnnysmom
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,684
Jun 25, 2014 21:16:33 GMT
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Post by johnnysmom on Mar 18, 2022 0:19:42 GMT
In addition to all of the above…,where do we stand on work visas. They were halted for awhile, have started back up yet?
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Post by melanell on Mar 18, 2022 0:19:50 GMT
The workers are here. We are job searching. This was my son last Spring & Summer. So many businesses were saying that they were desperate for employees, yet my son, and several other kids we know that are about his age, all found actually getting a job was really difficult. It was like businesses were putting up signs saying "We're hiring! No experience necessary! Any hours! Please!!" and then these kids wouldn't even get a response when they tried to set up interviews, and when they finally had interviews, they wouldn't ever hear back, either. And they were a varied group, so it wasn't like they all happened to be one "type" that employers didn't want.
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iluvpink
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,370
Location: Michigan
Jul 13, 2014 12:40:31 GMT
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Post by iluvpink on Mar 18, 2022 0:21:27 GMT
I would say it's a mix of boomers retiring, people not having reliable child care/school for children and people being fed up with minimum wage/crappy jobs.
My mother is a nurse, she would love to still be working at least part time, she's bored. But she didn't feel safe when the nursing home where she was working took in COVID patients. She's not young but healthy and full of energy. But even so she wasn't comfortable with it and could afford to retire, so she did. Otherwise she probably would be working a few more years.
I know the women in my office with young children have really struggled with juggling. The only reason they have been able to make it work is because we have the option to work at home, flex time, good vacation and sick time and just general understanding people in charge. I work in a University setting and I know that many of our grad students have children and they have also really struggled with academics and research while parenting during the pandemic.
In the meantime my dd who would probably normally still be working minimum wage or a little more, recently applied for and received an offer for a job at the same university. I doubt given her skill set and the pay they offered, that she would have gotten the offer a couple of years ago. She got lucky. I mean she won't be rich but for 22 and no college degree/votech training, it's a pretty good job.
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Post by busy on Mar 18, 2022 0:26:26 GMT
People who can afford to retire or not work because of their partner's second income largely are not the folks who were previously working at McDonald's and other low-wage service industry jobs..
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anaterra
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,082
Location: Texas
Jun 29, 2014 3:04:02 GMT
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Post by anaterra on Mar 18, 2022 0:28:46 GMT
My son n daughter in law decided they could make it work on 1 income... she worked in retail... had to quit when the pandemic started because of school age kids...
Ds stayed working in an "essential" job... they had learned to live within his income... ddil didn't make a ton of money but they realized they could make it work...
So she isnt going back until things are more stable with schools...
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Mar 18, 2022 0:29:34 GMT
I’m curious about that as well. It seems that all of the fast food and other starting jobs pay at least $15 an hour now here, even for teens. That is more than last year. But everywhere is hiring and most of the fast food restaurants are still drive through only because of staffing issues. And not open the same hours that they were pre-Covid.
It’s easy for people to say that workers need to be paid more, but I think that is part of the reason why prices gave increased for a lot of things because those at the top don’t want to take any kind of pay cut to make sure that their other employees get fair pay.
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Post by Merge on Mar 18, 2022 0:29:53 GMT
Kinda puts paid to the whole idea that jobs were going unfilled because of the extra unemployment benefits, huh?
My oldest is extremely lucky to have a job as a hostess in a local restaurant chain. But she also prefers to work just part time while she is in school. She's still had issues with them wanting to schedule her during the day when she's in class, and she has to tell them no. The workers there hoping for close to full time are frustrated because they can't seem to get enough hours. I understand from my kids' friends that most retail and restaurants still seem to feel a worker should be fine with 20 hours a week spread out at any day/time as needed, and that just doesn't work for most people.
Kind of on a tangent - we spent the last five days out in west Texas and southern New Mexico. National and state parks both had very reduced hours from what we're used to, both because of budget cuts and because they don't have enough workers at the wages they can pay to keep the parks open safely.
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Post by ntsf on Mar 18, 2022 0:29:53 GMT
ski resorts are having labor issues.. they used to use a lot of young people on temp work visas from around the world.. no more visas.
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Post by Spongemom Scrappants on Mar 18, 2022 0:33:52 GMT
What I’ve seen some with young women I know is a change to self-employment. And generally something quite flexible. Most like the ability that gives them to be more available for their children as well as less need for childcare, a work wardrobe, expensive commutes, and the like.
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jayfab
Drama Llama
procastinating
Posts: 5,591
Jun 26, 2014 21:55:15 GMT
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Post by jayfab on Mar 18, 2022 0:34:12 GMT
In addition to all of the above a lot of retail companies have reduced store hours, reduced amount of hours given to run the stores, thus they are hiring very part time only. Employees are working till 1 in the afternoon alone in a lot of cases. I wouldn't work in retail right now for anything.
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Mar 18, 2022 0:38:40 GMT
By no means am I saying that everyone who stopped working is now getting state benefits, but I would be curious to know if the numbers of people who are getting benefits has increased and how that compares to unemployment numbers. For some people, I wonder if they realized that quitting their job and applying for benefits was more beneficial to them than working lower paying jobs and paying for daycare.
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Post by Linda on Mar 18, 2022 0:38:54 GMT
People who were working at McDonalds and the like found jobs at Amazon, UPS, Fedex - places like that where pay is a little better and hours are a bit more predictable. Others retired - teachers esp.
Women who took on the majority of pandemic burden at home may well have discovered that the family CAN manage without their (often lower) wages.
Teens and college kids stepped out of the workforce (or didn't step into it)
Lots of people took on gig jobs - Uber, door dash, tutoring, child care, elderly care...
And sadly - lots of people died from covid and covid adjacent causes.
And yes - work visas are harder to get and migrant workers aren't as ...available either for a variety of covid and immigration reasons.
Only one of my three kids is employed - DS30 is in the Navy (pre-enlistment, he worked for Walmart). DD21 has never worked and we're not encouraging DD15 to seek employment while she's in high school. Covid plays a role in that but it's not the main reason. I also don't work - I haven't since I went out on maternity leave when I had DD21...and the supermarket I worked for didn't pay me my $100/wk for 6wks short term disability (that I had paid into) and then didn't take me back after my leave...we discovered that we could JUST make it without my pay since we were making it without my pay. I suspect there are low-wage workers who came to that same conclusion while furloughed during lockdowns.
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Post by Merge on Mar 18, 2022 0:41:12 GMT
People who can afford to retire or not work because of their partner's second income largely are not the folks who were previously working at McDonald's and other low-wage service industry jobs.. Perhaps not, but they may have left job openings that were taken by those who previously worked at a low-wage service industry job. I'd speculate also that a fair number of undocumented workers who were doing those jobs left during the Trump administration rather than risk the family separation policy.
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Mar 18, 2022 1:42:14 GMT
The workers are here. We are job searching. This was my son last Spring & Summer. So many businesses were saying that they were desperate for employees, yet my son, and several other kids we know that are about his age, all found actually getting a job was really difficult. It was like businesses were putting up signs saying "We're hiring! No experience necessary! Any hours! Please!!" and then these kids wouldn't even get a response when they tried to set up interviews, and when they finally had interviews, they wouldn't ever hear back, either. And they were a varied group, so it wasn't like they all happened to be one "type" that employers didn't want. Many times stores are building up a file of potential employees to burn through when they need staff. I worked at a store several years ago where the manager was calling people who had applied through Indeed. They have a whole pile/file, and print off applications received, and keep by date, calling oldest applications first. She called a gentleman who answered, and explained that he had applied two years previous, and now lived several states away.
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