Seeing all the help wanted signs everywhere I go, I read through this thread with interest. Something that no-one addresses is the fact that there are fewer teenagers and young adults today than there were in yesteryear. I worked until recently at a large university in Boston, and they started planning for the drop in college aged people back in the late 90's. Schools that depend on a large applicant pool noticed that the birthrate had begun to fall, and that they would need to strategize to remain competitive in the future. We just got confirmation of this fact in the 2020 census.

I don't know what this means for business owners who depend on the teenage/young adult labor force, but it's a definite factor.

For the people who like to speak of grazing at the public trough, etc., it seems that a large part of the labor shortage (though not entirely) is for seasonal workers. Those people are not getting unemployment.

Just off the top of my head, it seems entirely possible and reasonably doable to operate a restaurant in the Plymouth area where each and every food/restaurant item is sourced entirely, 100%, from the Plymouth Market Basket.

Running the business model 100% based on this rule that it comes from this Market Basket, or we do not have it or get it from any other source. It's Market Basket and no where else seems very doable for a restaurant.

Like .......... why not .......... said the inquisitive poster?

One thing that economists on both sides of the aisle have pushed for over the past 5 years has been higher bargaining power for working class Americans. Trump's immigration policies, Biden's covid relief, and stated objectives of both, have all included policies that put direct upward pressure on domestic wages. Setting aside whether this is a good thing or a bad thing in general, no economist should be surprised that Sam is having a tough time hiring this year (or next...)

It's the old supply and demand issue.. It was bound to happen. You close businesses up for over a year then the economy bounces back and there just isn't enough built up surplus to keep up with demand. It will take a while for businesses to catch up but it will. Sent from my SM-G950U using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

If they can't get enough help to man the restaurant how are they going to break away to go shopping at Market Basket?
You obviously have no clue what it takes to run a small business!Sent from my SM-G950U using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

Market Basket-Plymouth is open every single day, 7-days/week, from 7am to 8pm and open starting at 6am for seniors, age 60 and older.

For a restaurant business located, say, within a relative short drive away, it could be an advantage to have such a large food supply for running a restaurant always open seven days, and always available as opposed to getting deliveries from a restaurant supply like Sysco.

How do restaurant food items from a delivered food service like Sysco COST as compared to Market Basket and what is the difference between restaurant food service and buying at a super-market?

In the summer months, I have noticed what must have been summer camp dinning room customers at the Walmart with shopping carts very loaded with many items probably intended for feeding a lot of campers. Specifically, giant cans of tuna fish and mayonaisse.

Summer camp dining room food service is different than restaurant food service but the buyer made their decision to purchase at the Walmart so there's probably a number of reasons for where commercial dining gets its food supply. Is probably a very competitive business based on price, quality, choice, convenience.

Does Sysco hire extremely attractive restaurant sales ladies who are encouraged to dress provocatively as a design to help its restaurant sales to individual restaurants or do the Sysco truck drivers who deliver the items do the sales calls as well as driving and delivering the big semi tractor trailer truck?

What do you think? ...... ;)

Oh that was me, buying lunch for my sons.

So many choices for where to buy for a restaurant business ..... a restaurant supplier that delivers ..... or a local super-market.

Could be the restaurants go to both depending on what they need and how fast they need to get it?

As far as I know, there's really not much difference in price between the two, with all three, Walmart, Hannaford, and Market Basket all lower priced than the restaurant suppliers ..... which seems surprising ..... but that's the way it supposedly is because these three stores all have to compete on prices to attract customers.

McDonald's-owned U.S. restaurants boost pay to lure new workers
 

most big companies are doing this. They have more pricing ability and name brand recognition . Tougher for a small mom and pop. This is free market at work . I was on a board of a residential brain injury company with a facility in Gilroy Cal, we were paying aids around 13 per hour and we found that Wendy's was paying $14 for a much easier job so we raised wages. Of course the insurance companies didn't allow us to raise prices regionally

McD's has some major problems operating in a rising labor cost market.

First, there's the menu and its price structure. There is a "value" section of the menu and there is all the rest of the menu. When prices are increased on the rest of the menu the return from that increase is reduced by trade off to the value items.

This makes it harder to keep the value items priced low. Eventually "value" has to be redefined. You may recall the McD's "Dollar" menu. Now it is "$1, $2 and $3" value menu.

The second and in my view bigger problem, is the quality of execution when each labor hour costs so much. To provide fast, accurate and friendly service there needs to be adequate staffing. Herein lies the dilemma. Hourly pay that is too low can result in understaffing. Raising wages to an attractive level can bring in more bodies but there is no guarantee that the additional employees improve results. The cost to train them becomes higher and there is a temptation to minimize the hours spent doing so.

If the pool of available workers does not increase you just end up with the same tight staffing and mediocre execution but at greater cost.

This situation is worsened by the current government sponsored couch careers.

Full disclosure: I'm not an economics guy, but here goes:

Robert Reich, in his book The Common Good, delves into "Shareholder" capitalism and "Stockholder" capitalism. The former, he claims, exists when all three points of the capitalism triangle—consumer, worker, and owner—exist in a state that works equally for all. For example, workers get paid well, owners make a reasonable amount of money, and consumers are offered solid products at fair prices.

The latter, however, maximizes profit and pay for the owner/stockholders while adversely affecting product quality and price, worker pay, or both.

My basic question is this: why is it that worker pay and benefit questions always result in "costs of products will skyrocket" rather than "CEOs/stockholders/etc." might not make 320x what their employees make?

This is a serious question as, long before my father passed away, he watched this trend in his company and it always hurt him. In the 60's when he started, his bosses made five times what he made while in the '00s when he retired, they were making thirty times.

I looked this up not long ago, and though his numbers were probably off (low!), he wasn't wrong at all: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-...ypical-worker/

Thoughts? Why isn't this talked about more?

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Only one reason, GREED.Sent from my SM-G950U using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

I'm not an economics guy either but :

"why is it that worker pay and benefit questions always result in "costs of products will skyrocket"" is NOT true if the individual workers EARN their pay and benefit increases through higher productivity via education/learning and good work practices. Such a worker returns more in profit to a company than their wage increases cost. Good companies HAPPILY pay such employees what they are worth.

On the other hand, unions often bargain for wages that exceed what productivity will justify. Or, set in place rising compensation based on longevity rather than productivity. These increases DO increase production costs but are tolerated by companies due to union pressure and the limited and predictable nature of the increases. However, that's a trap. Any non productivity based increases eventually corrode a business, i.e. the American auto industry. Auto unions controlled wages in the US but couldn't control competing wages in foreign countries. Nor could they control the growth of robotics that eliminated overly expensive workers.

""CEOs/stockholders/etc." might not make 320x what their employees make?"
It is the classic "the buck stops here" which implies that the RESPONSIBILITY (and the pay) accrues to the top. The CEO (and the Board) make the major decisions that guide the growth of a company. It the company is smart, a significant portion of the CEO's compensation is tied to profitability. The CEO is not only making sure that products get built but also predicting future needs for products and actions of competitors. Further, no one else is above the CEO making sure he doesn't mess things up. As an employee or even a manager makes decisions and take actions, others are overseeing their work. No one oversees the CEO. They walk a tightrope without a net. Employee mistakes might cost $100s. A CEO's mistakes could cost $billions. The top level people EARN their money by growing profit.

Further, it is not how many times the salary is of a CEO compared to one worker that has meaning. It is how many times the salary of a CEO is compared to the cumulative salary of ALL the workers in a company BECAUSE the CEO is in charge of ALL of them and ALL of their efforts. For example, Microsoft's CEO makes $44 million vs $4 billion in overall employee payments, about 1.1%, i.e. for each employee dollar paid the CEO gets 1 cent. OR how much the CEO makes as compared to the revenue of the company. For example, the Microsoft CEO's $44 million against a company revenue of about $160 billion or about .1% of revenue. Another way to think about it is when you buy a $2000 computer, the CEO makes $2. Of course this is a simplified example because CEO's also get performance bonuses and other perks. (Numbers were pulled from various public Microsoft reports and are not meant to be precise but as an example only.)

Without a competent CEO, products wouldn't get made at all, no workers would earn anything, and you wouldn't have your computer to purchase.

I won't say that all companies are well managed or that many CEOs aren't overpaid but such companies usually struggle or fail eventually. Smart management KNOWS how it is supposed to work and keeps compensation for EVERYONE in line with their productivity. The process is VERY dynamic and challenging as markets, competition, and the overall economy is always changing.

You just spent a few pages on justifying what I'm suggesting is a problem—essentially criticizing the low people on the totem and praising the high.

Unions exist BECAUSE owners weren't/aren't doing the right thing. My father lost a finger to a machine that he had told management to add safety gear to years earlier. Once OSHA moved in, guess which machine got a safety apparatus?

In the first decade I was a teacher, the highest raise was 1%. One contract had 0, 0, 1/2% raises, and those were WITH a union. Can you imagine what the district would've asked us to do/take without one?

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Some people are willing to risk everything and start a business. Some people are willing to work from dawn to dusk while others don't work one minute extra. Some people stay awake at night making sure they have enough business to keep their employees who depend on them while others just show up for work (if they do) You think they should all get the same money? Robert Reich is full of crap.

I don't think anyone is saying they should all make the same amount of money but we keep asking on here "why are we paying people more money not to work than to go to work"?
Maybe the answer is to pay people that want to work more money.

Nobody's saying all people should make the same—that's you further justifying the system and skewing the discussion.

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Unions HAD a great purpose when they started. Conditions were bad and wages abusive. For the most part, that is no longer true. Most issues unions were created to address have been enshrined in law and federal and state watchdogs such as OSHA. Beyond that, most businessmen are MUCH more enlightened about employees and the relationship between good working conditions and productivity. To build the best, most profitable company, you need skilled and happy employees with an excellent work ethic.

You mention a contract with 0, 0, 1/2% raises and bemoan the small size of the increases. I would ask what individual employees did to EARN such increases? Show up? Keep breathing? What standards were in place to evaluate their efforts to justify their pay increases? Nothing! Because the best to the worst teacher got the same raises, per the contract. Sure, they might have had a yearly "evaluation" but it was mostly meaningless because nothing was tied to the outcome. Such raises are inflationary by their nature.

When the companies I worked for did evaluations they were measured against a uniform scale of expectations based on their current position. For example, new, recent grad employees were not expected to show much leadership skills. Their entry jobs did not give them much chance to do so. All employees ended up in various positions on a "ladder", the best at the top. Junior employees could be high on the ladder if they exceeded expectations for their job. All employees had full access to the evaluation form and it was made clear in the evaluation what areas might be substandard and what areas were room for growth. Growth opportunities were presented during the next year.

If slow times hit, the worst performing employees, the lowest on the ladder, were laid off, not the least senior as in many contract jobs. The most productive people were retained.

In summary, efforts were rewarded. Benefits were generous. There was no union to push the issue. In current times, skilled and focused workers are paid more and generally treated well. Skilled employees could easily change companies and the management knew it and respected it. I have no problem with unions protecting those in unfair situations but their focus on raises for all, no matter what, is not healthy. They should be focused on helping their workers build the best skills for their job and then making sure the employer has fair and uniform evaluations, a competitive wage scale for their industry, and fair working conditions.

I am NOT criticizing the "low people" on the totem pole. I am pointing out that THEY have the responsibility to improve their condition and raise their pay by working hard, learning new skills, showing initiative, and having a good work ethic. The company has the responsibility to recognize and reward such efforts that make the company stronger and more profitable. If the company does not, well, the skills the employee has mastered are portable to a new job. Unions COULD enhance the process but, IMO, as they currently act, they mostly do not.

Well, laddering isn’t the be all, end all either. I worked at a place where the laddering was done, not by merit, but by favoritism. I watched my place on the ladder (which was not told to employees unless they went to HR) change based on which projects or group leaders were favored. For several years, I was laddered against my group leader’s sister-in-law. Had absolutely nothing to do with my job performance.


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Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works. . . .


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0, 0, 1/2%
 

0, 0, 1/2%. I'm not clear when that was, but I do reacll a time in the 8's when things were bad all over and the local teachers union agreed to no pay raises. Things were tough all over and it was appreciated by the taxpayers. This is quite unlike the bad press the national unions are getting today. Two things in the background. The likelihood was that there would have been many layoffs had the payroll budget not been held steady. The other is that many public employee contracts include step increase just because you've been on the job another year.

I expected nothing less from you.Sent from my SM-G950U using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

Good News for the Restaurants (& others) in New Hampshire
 

Gov. Sununu has just signed an order that stops the Federal unemployment premium as of June 19th. State unemployment will STILL exist.

This may mean that some of these folks may have an incentive to return to work and help out the many New Hampshire businesses who are starving for employees.

Good news and let's hope it helps out!

If you come off unemployment for 8 consecutive weeks you can receive a 500 employment bonus for part time and 1000 for full time employment

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Bravo Gov. Sununu

Twenty-Nine States To Maintain Couch-Careers...
 

Twenty-one states involved:

https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampprojec...nt-benefits%2F
:look:

haha I’m glad to have met your expectations. Before I posted, I was thinking “I hope I can meet Biggd’s expectations with this. I’d be crushed if I were to fall short. After all, his approval is my goal.”

Memorial Day is almost here. Everyone enjoy the lake and have fun.


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Interesting interview with owners of Hart’s Turkey Farm regarding labor shortages


https://www.nhpr.org/post/nh-restaur...hange#stream/0

I addressed much of what the article suggests in post #108, followed up with studies that show no/little correlation between supplemental unemployment and returning to work.

One thing this article adds is the foreign worker situation—they mention Covid limitations, but Trump's policies began the process.

I'm interested to see what this summer will be like in terms of dining out. Perhaps my Ramseyan beans and rice, rice and beans combined with the need to keep my suburban dad bod in check has come at the right time!

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Think, I hate to disagree but I do. I am sure you don't believe every study you read. There is no question if some, and I do say SOME people, can be paid not to work they will take advantage of it. Some have pride and would not take tax money unless it was absolutely necessary but others have no problem with it.

There's meeting, then there's exceeding ...something to aspire to??[emoji16]

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You can disagree all you want, but multiple studies have shown a much lower correlation between supplemental unemployment and returning to work than most would want the narrative to be. Multiple studies, not your or others' gut feelings.

Those studies show that it exists—and we'd be obtuse not to believe so given that *some* of the anecdotal stories are real—but not nearly at a level commensurate with the political narrative.

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If that's true, how do you explain the millions of people in this country who are able bodied but make a career of collecting unemployment?

You are talking about two different things here: people who "make a career of collecting unemployment" and people not returning to employment because of the supplemental unemployment benefits.

There have, and will always be, some of the former—that's not what we're discussing. It's the narrative that people aren't returning to work because they're "making more on unemployment" that has been shown (through studies and data) to be inaccurate.

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maybe you could provide the links to these numerous studies so that we all can be enlightened

I mean, other than the ones I already posted above?

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/04/rese...g-to-work.html

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ma...it-11613075086

https://www.frbsf.org/economic-resea...scourage-work/

https://econofact.org/have-enhanced-...scouraged-work

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-600-...rk-11596015000

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What’s that I keep hearing about??? Oh yeah, “Confirmation Bias”! :laugh::laugh::laugh: It’s clear that “Couch Careers” are alive and well. No BS studies will convince me otherwise.

Coming from the guy who posted a clearly debunked article that literally flew in the face of EVERY scientific publication at the time and then was redacted everywhere?

A "study" literally picked up by an education program to teach how to spot false information?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha!!!

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A line from one of those articles above sums up this discussion (paraphrased): the system of people returning to work or not in relation to supplemental unemployment is much more nuanced than the current narrative that people simply aren't returning to work because they can make more on unemployment.

In my original post, above, I referred to a few of the other variables NPR and others have added to the nuance.

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