Hired help problems already!
 

Got an email from Winni Marine the other day saying whomever signed up for a “Spring cleaning service” which was on their “menu” of services, would NOT be getting that service. Their email said even though they had aggressively, advertised on many local ad venues, they could not hire anyone to perform the service!
They said they even looked into hiring local detailing businesses but they were already “over extended” but going forward they would still pursue adding the cleaning service to their list.
As of now, they will perform a complimentary, rinse off of winter dust but would not be removing covers, etc.
I have no problem with this as we don’t mind cleaning our toon ourselves.
Too many jobs available in our booming economy!

Real employment test will be if the local restaurants fill all their positions. This is the good and the bad of the current economy and job market

I pass by a McD's on my way to work down in MA and there is a sign in the front lawn - hiring all shifts, F/T starting at $14 per hour.

Wow! What kid (or retiree) would not be happy with that starting pay?

There's an incredibly simple and obvious solution. There are literally thousands of people arriving to the US border every week looking for a better life and willing to do hard manual labor for reasonable salary. Maybe instead of paying to keep them in detention centers, they could get temporary work visas and add to the economy rather than subtract from it. If they prove to be adding to society over time, give them permanent resident status and let them apply for citizenship, if not send them home. It's astounding to me that this is not happening right now.

Please don't make this political, it's simply pragmatic and I think a necessary step to keep the economy booming longer. If we don't add to the work force, inflation is going to be a problem soon and that will slow the economy.

The Laconia McDonalds has help wanted signs out but the starting pay is "up to $10 per hour"

With the massive, amounts of illegals being released into the country right now, this probably will be happening!

I wouldn't eat at McDonalds if you paid me $10 an hour. Sorry but their food is horrible. About the only thing I get at McDonalds is a coffee at the drive through and sometimes that's horrible.

I find it ironic that you make a political post of a highly controversial nature, than ask other to not make it political. :confused:

This is the worst seasonal staffing crisis I've seen in 40 years.
There are thousands of jobs out there and hardly anyone applying.
Job fairs and ads are bringing very few results.
It's getting to be a bidding war out there and many business' have resorted to trying to steal employees from competitors.
At least it proves my point that a minimum wage means nothing. It is supply and demand that determines wages as well as prices.

This is a rather lengthy article but it does have relevancy to the Lakes Region.

Because this paper does have a pay wall I have copied it in its entirety.

{removed because of copyright concerns}

https://www.concordmonitor.com/kiwan...rd-nh-25139115

I am not trying to make this political.... But instead of worrying about the immigrants waiting at the boarder, how about makeing those that are collecting unemployment, or welfare take these positions at least on a part time basis. while there are supposed to be looking for work.

Just because jobs seem plentiful, don't believe that there aren't people still out there playing the system. Don't believe that there aren't people available with the ability to work...

I could go on and on, but I will not.... I will simply say the solution is available, and it has nothing to do with immigration... it has to do with reforming unemployment, and walfare systems... so that it isn't a "money for free" operation...

They are on welfare because they don't want to work. If you were an employer you wouldn't even want those kind of hires. I agree those systems need reform but that won't help much with the labor shortage.

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It's only political if you see it that way. Look at it from a practical point of view.

That seems good in theory, but in practice it's never worked and never will. You might be able to take away the benefits, but you are not going to make people take and/or keep jobs that they don't want. I'm for giving jobs to people that want jobs and have a ton of incentive to work hard and keep the jobs.

If you owned a business that relied on revenue from products that you created and sold, would you be ok with someone buying one of your products and then making copies and having them available for free for an unlimited number of people? Yeah, I didn't think so.

From a practical point of view it's called exploitation.

It's purposely suppressing wages by importing millions of unskilled non-citizen workers that will work for peanuts out of desperation all in the interest of keeping inflation in check. Interesting concept.... rather ironic from the same people that rail about upping the minimum wage to a "living wage" which would not drive up inflation?!? I'm no economics guru but something doesn't add up.

I don't think the reason is to keep inflation in check, it's more about keeping business thriving which in turn keeps the economy humming along. At some point the labor shortage will have a negative effect on the economy.

The library has been doing just that for DECADES. They attach the news paper to a stick to ensure it remains in the building for an unlimited number of people to read.

The paper that I quoted above offers a limited number of free articles on the website so I didn't even pay for the one I posted.

Thanks for the laugh though. :rolleye1:

UnEmployment
 

I take a slight offense to this comment. Back in 2007 I was laid off and was unemployed for 7 months. Thank god for unemployment compensation and a grant for retraining. Not all people who are unemployed don't want to work. That is a blanket statement that is too broad, Yes I am sure there are some people using the system, but that assumption should not be applied to all.

Just my two cents,
Bill

Both political parties LOVE their wage-slaves from overseas.

If you reread my post I said welfare.
The other big scam is disability payments. I see so many people on disability that are able to work but they take that free money as long as they can get it. Many of then take the money and still work getting paid under the table, milking the system for all it's worth.

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It's ridiculous, that's why the food at Mc D's is so expensive. I go to NYC every Saturday, sometimes I stop and get breakfast before heading out and I just shake my head at how dumb I am to spend $10+ on a breakfast sandwich or two and cup of coffee. Then again I driver to NYC every Saturday for work, so I'm all kinds of dumb :rolleye1:

Better off going to a deli and getting a double egg bacon cheese on a roll. Its cheaper, delicious and a free coffee or oj to boot. :laugh:

Welfare and unemployment are two entirely different things.

Unemployment is not welfare it is a "benefit" you paid into while working. Furthermore there are perquisites to get it. You have to have lost your job by no fault of your own (quit) and not due to dismissal for cause (IE you got fired). Secondly you have to have held your job for a certain period of time and paid in a certain amount which varies by state. In other words you earned that.

It's one of the few social programs that, while not perfect, does give everyone a little safety net that actually earns it.

It's definitely exploitation, but the practical kind, not the unfair kind. I'm confident that these folks would rather detail boats for 15 bucks an hour instead of sitting in a detention center doing nothing, earning nothing and adding nothing to society. What you see as the negative form of exploitation, they would see as a great opportunity.

If it were up to me, jobs would be posted and when they are not filled by US citizens after X number of weeks, they would be offered to folks in detention centers that are waiting for asylum hearings. If they do good work and stay employed, everybody wins. If they can't seem to hold a job after a few tries, we send them home and know that we dodged a bullet. It's not the kindest way to do it, but it's practical and vastly more humane than what's happening now. It would also boost the economy by keeping the most productive people here and working.

I also don't think the solution is to pay high-skill wages to highly-skilled laborers to do unskilled work. That does not add up.

You can try to rationalize this however you want. It's still the theft of intellectual property.

There is an aspect of copyright law called "Fair Use":

If you want to discuss copyright laws further please do it on the Support Forum or in a new thread. Please don't hijack this thread.

Work Force
 

We need competent workers here in NH, not just laborers. I see so much incompetence in the work force and folks just collecting a paycheck instead of being good at what they do.

I would be happy with ANYONE who can pass a pre-employment drug test!

You don't know if they are competent until they start working. Competency doesn't come in a certain color.

Work Force
 

Who said anything about color?

I'm pretty sure competent workers are needed everywhere work is done.

If you can sell a boat cleaning service for 50 bucks an hour and pay someone 15 bucks an hour to do it, you can afford to train them and make them competent. The training will likely pay for itself by day 3; after that, it's pretty profitable, even when you consider overhead. We already know there's a market, and the work facility (and the majority of the overhead) already exists, the only missing link is the hose and sponge operator. That person is presently sitting in a chain-link fence pen killing time and wasting tax payer money. To me, the solution is absurdly obvious.

Actually Maxum, the employer pays Futa and Suta not the employee. Futa is federal while Suta is state.



Do Employers Have to Pay Unemployment Taxes?

TIS is absolutely correct. Although the employer does not directly pay unemployment to the employee the tax is imposed on the employer.

However there is an indirect effect. In many states such as NY the rate is dependent on the industry you are in. If you are in a high turnover industry your rate is higher and if you have a high turnover rate in your company your experience rate is also increase. Additionally in NY the tax is imposed on the first 8500.00 of wages unlike the 7000.00 for federal

Speaking of Taxes . . .
 

. . . Massachusetts just enacted a new tax associated with the Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave Act. Beginning in January of 2021 most workers in Massachusetts will be eligible to get up to 12 weeks of paid family leave and up to 20 weeks of paid medical leave. The program will be funded by premiums paid by employees, employers, and the self-employed.

The employer has the option of paying a minimum of 60% up to 100% of the premiums. The cost for a typical employee if we pay 60% is $250-$500 per year depending on how much they make. It doesn't sound like much, but it adds up, especially since Massachusetts has a 5.1% income tax.

As part of our firm's management committee, I voted not to pay a penny more than our minimum obligation of 60%. On other things like insurance premium increases or 401(k) benefits, I typically vote to be generous. However, 95% of our employees (we're in Cambridge) most likely voted for the representatives who enacted this nonsense, and they need to understand that there are consequences for their votes. Someday, Massachusetts will drive out employers, much like New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

I stand corrected and I knew that …

Housing...
 

Related to the difficulty in finding workers is housing. I worked in the area as a teenager and it was great. I was also very fortunate in that my parents provided a free place foe me to live. Later in life when I tried to work a summer job in a different location, the jobs were easy to find, housing was not.

What is the seasonal housing market like in the Lakes Region? I know the service industry looks for workers from Memorial Day to Labor Day, which is also the height of seasonal housing rates.

Having a job at $15/hour sounds great, but if there’s no place to live, not so much.

I live near a ski area which has the same problem in the winter. They have to provide housing for their seasonal workers - most of whom are from other countries.

That would have cost me $62,500 a year if I were still in the business I had.

To recover that expense I could have raised prices but how much are people willing to pay for a burger?

The labor shortage, minimum wage increases and demands for $15/hour are just a few of the things I am happy to be missing.

Sometimes it's better to be a patient person on the customer side of the counter.

I just chant my retirement mantra..."lalala".

We had a server at Giusseppe’s last summer from Romania. Spoke perfect English and was an excellent server. We chatted a little bit and she said the owner provided housing (for a fee). Sounded like a good arrangement.