Restaurant operators are turning to robots as labor shortage drags on

[JeromeFree]

I think very soon robots will be everywhere lol

 

[Bp968]

Using the Boomer generation as an example is an exercise in futility because their circumstances were completely different to today. I'll explain further down.

I wish it were as simple as you say but it's not. Back in your stepdad's day (the Boomer Era of the 70s and 80s), you could still own a home, a car and raise a family on a single income. It was harder than 20 years earlier, but still very possible. You also didn't need any kind of degree to get most jobs like you need today.

Your stepdad is about my own father's age which means that, if he went to university instead of learning a skilled trade, he'd have started in the late 60s. Do you know how much it cost to go to university in the USA back then? In 1968, the average tuition for university was $367 for public and $1,487 for private. When you adjust for inflation, tuition has increased 340% between 1969 and 2019.

Housing has become even worse. In 1970, the median household income was $8,734 and the average cost of a house was $17,000. I'll wait for people who just read that to pick their lower jaws up out of their laps. So basically, you could have a house paid off effortlessly in five years. Of course, we know that this isn't the case today, eh? The median home price in the USA increased by 416% from 1980 to 2020.

People today are scared to death that they'll not be able to get a house and raise a family without some super-high-paying job and since suit-wearing professionals have historically made more money than overalls-wearing tradesmen, they're turning away from the trades. Sure, you know people who are making money hand-over-fist and turning away work but they weren't able to be so choosy about what they did before the trade shortage and their lives today would be as crappy as everyone else's if there weren't so few of them.

What your stepfather lived through was an absolute CAKEWALK compared to what people have to face today. A country that is economically broken and politically fractured. Ironically, all of this happened under the watch of the very Baby Boomer generation to which your stepdad belongs. You might want to check yourself and get all the facts before being so quick to worship them as you do. More than any other generation, the Baby Boomers have completely FiretrUCKed this world. They are NOT to be admired because the damage that they caused far outweighs any good that they did. The generation before them are the ones to be admired.

Our reality is cushier then theirs for the small stuff like tech but for the big stuff like owning a home and raising a family, the Baby Boomers were the ones on easy street. Cushy tech is of no use when you can barely afford to keep a roof over your head and live in a country that blames you for the economic mess that the Baby Boomer generation created through their own greed, ignorance and arrogance.

They lived a charmed life compared to us when it came to actually living a carefree existence. I'll never accept the BS that spews out of their mouth because, let's face it, they're the last uneducated generation. They talk like they know everything but, trust me, they don't know a damn thing. I have two parents from that generation and they're both completely clueless about anything that has nothing to do with the job that they did because their education was a joke in those days.

Lol. The us vs them is powerful here. They didn't destory the world, they lived in a different one. Ill use housing as an example:

In the time between when mr boomer was working and now a huge influx of people have moved into huge mega cities and all of them want homes. Boomer buys his house for 20 grand and now that house is worth half a million due to demand. How is that his fault? And then we have population growth, which isn't minor in the same time frame.

And the worst aspect of housing (especially in those popular mega cities) is the fact that you compete with global buyers. Buying a home in florida? Well get ready to compete with tons of retired and wealthy americans and tons of wealthy foreigners as well. NYC? well get ready to compete with the world, and worse, a very very very *rich* world. Population grows but housing near work doesn't in places like nyc or LA. Hopefully remote work options will help alleviate that somewhat.

Globalization is amazing, but its not free. Global housing competition is intense. And now we even have Air BNB making a mess of things. How often in the 80s did you have friends who owned a dozen+ rental properties as their "side hussle"? Almost none. Now its a fairly common thing.

Its way more complex than your making it out to be.

As for the "lazy workers" nonsense. I also disagree. I made 65k in an entry lvl IT job in the 90s and early 2000s. Try to pull that off now days. Wages have been heavily stagnant when compared to actual inflation (houseing and medical care). I got diagnosed with a severe immune condition and if it were not for that baby boomer family member we would have gone bankrupt. He saved us. The major issues in the US are wage stagnation (going to a service economy was a stupid idea and gave up our manufacturing advances and skillbase) and healthcare costs skyrocketing.

And as for robots. I think their awesome. The more we can replace thankless and mindless jobs with robots the better. Eventually it will force a rethink of how our global economy works but thats inevitable. I see a switch to guaranteed income at some point due entirely to automation. Eventually we wont have enough jobs for all the humans and we will have to decide how we value human life. Do with think its valuable on its own and should be supported regardless? Or do with think if someone cant survive then they deserve what they get? Star trek or mad max? I guess we will see.

 

[mbrowne5061]

When the government pays people to sit home and not work they can expect to be replaced. I can't wait till that money stops flowing and all those fools are crying about how their jobs are gone.

That money stopped flowing a while ago. Most studies using actual data show the labor crunch is a mix of people deciding min wage isn't worth risking their life (even if it means 'no wage'), and older people not returning to work at all because they retired.

 

[Bp968]

That money stopped flowing a while ago. Most studies using actual data show the labor crunch is a mix of people deciding min wage isn't worth risking their life (even if it means 'no wage'), and older people not returning to work at all because they retired.

I was curious about that. I wonder if anyone has any data on the percentage increase in retirements? I know it was enough to cause my FIL to retire. Even if it was only a few percentage points increase that could have made a large dent in available work force. Same with teenagers. If the parents veto working during the pandemic or the kid decides its not worth it that could also add up to a fairly large amount. Even before the pandemic they were talking up potential labor shortages and we were near "full employment" if I remember correctly. So it wouldn't take a ton of people leaving the market or changing fields to put a big dent in hospitality jobs.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Lol. The us vs them is powerful here. They didn't destory the world, they lived in a different one. Ill use housing as an example:

In the time between when mr boomer was working and now a huge influx of people have moved into huge mega cities and all of them want homes. Boomer buys his house for 20 grand and now that house is worth half a million due to demand. How is that his fault? And then we have population growth, which isn't minor in the same time frame.

And the worst aspect of housing (especially in those popular mega cities) is the fact that you compete with global buyers. Buying a home in florida? Well get ready to compete with tons of retired and wealthy americans and tons of wealthy foreigners as well. NYC? well get ready to compete with the world, and worse, a very very very *rich* world. Population grows but housing near work doesn't in places like nyc or LA. Hopefully remote work options will help alleviate that somewhat.

Globalization is amazing, but its not free. Global housing competition is intense. And now we even have Air BNB making a mess of things. How often in the 80s did you have friends who owned a dozen+ rental properties as their "side hussle"? Almost none. Now its a fairly common thing.

Its way more complex than your making it out to be.

As for the "lazy workers" nonsense. I also disagree. I made 65k in an entry lvl IT job in the 90s and early 2000s. Try to pull that off now days. Wages have been heavily stagnant when compared to actual inflation (houseing and medical care). I got diagnosed with a severe immune condition and if it were not for that baby boomer family member we would have gone bankrupt. He saved us. The major issues in the US are wage stagnation (going to a service economy was a stupid idea and gave up our manufacturing advances and skillbase) and healthcare costs skyrocketing.

And as for robots. I think their awesome. The more we can replace thankless and mindless jobs with robots the better. Eventually it will force a rethink of how our global economy works but thats inevitable. I see a switch to guaranteed income at some point due entirely to automation. Eventually we wont have enough jobs for all the humans and we will have to decide how we value human life. Do with think its valuable on its own and should be supported regardless? Or do with think if someone cant survive then they deserve what they get? Star trek or mad max? I guess we will see.

All I was pointing out was that a Baby Boomer's life experience is completely irrelevant to today and it is. Saying that "This one guy did all of this" isn't inspirational in the least when the options that he had at the time haven't existed for decades. I do stand by my assertion that the Baby Boomers screwed up the Earth because it sure as hell wasn't us Gen-X, Y or Z in control of things to be able to cause the problems that we're seeing today.

My post was an indictment of the Boomers who were in control and created this mess. It was also an indictment of the Boomers who were completely apathetic about the whole thing (and they should have known better because a lot of them were hippies at one point) and were too busy making sure that they got theirs while the world burned to do anything about it.

They weren't educated enough to understand what was happening and so did nothing to stop it when they could have. That's not really their fault but when they started taking wrong positions on things and arrogantly assuming that the much more highly-educated generations that came after them knew nothing (when we knew and know FAR more than they ever will), it became impossible to have any sympathy for them. Kind of like it's hard to have sympathy for anti-vaxxers who die of COVID-19. Their obnoxious attitudes about everything don't wouldn't win them any friends if they were right. The fact that they're wrong just makes them annoying and infuriating. Tryi to reason with a old country bumpkin who is convinced that he knows more about how the world works than someone with a doctorate in physics.

It's also important to remember that the "Ok Boomer" slogan was in direct response to them calling the younger generations "snowflakes" with the ludicrous assumption that they had a much harder life when nothing could be further from the truth. I'm Gen-X so I didn't have it so bad but the majority of Gen-Y and Gen-Z have little to no hope of being able to afford owning a home or raising a family. This was all caused by a failure of societal management and guess who was in charge at the time.

Once again, their own ignorance and arrogance created the generational conflict so they don't get to play the victims. It's about time someone said "You know what? Your whole generation has failed us after the generation before you literally saved the world. It's time for you to grow some humility and shut the hell up!" because it's long overdue.

 

[mailpup]

Back on topic please. Thank you.

 

[Bobbydpue]

I wasn't really talking about fast food. More Restaurants in general. Where making a decent chunk of money was already common place. I have a couple of family members that make upwards of 200 a night waitressing. Sometimes near 300 on really good nights.

You have no idea what you are talking about if you are going to make such vague statements. No one is going to be making $300 a night every night working at a Denny's or Applebees. People don't tip that high on meals costing under $20. Let's say a waiter has 4 tables for an hour each with 4 people (a four top) each meal cost $20 for a total of $80 each table. Lets say they tip 15% each that's $48 an hour. That situation is very generous, but also only realistic for two nights a week for about three to four hours per night. The rest of the week there are fewer tables with people spending significantly less money on their meals and tipping less. I doubt there are enough high end restaurants in Wisconsin to provide $300 in tips every hour every night of the week to every server. The situation you gave "a good night" is like expecting every night to be mother's day which was the biggest night of the year for a lot of American restaurants and certainly was for the OG I worked at in Montgomery, Alabama. A person on the wait staff doesn't make the same amount of money for every hour of the day. Sometimes wait staff are wrapping silverware and not serving tables at all while making less than $3 an hour for that work.
Here is a quote from the Economic Policy Institute about tipped work in the DC area:

"Tipped work is overwhelmingly low-wage work, even in Washington, D.C. Some tipped workers at high-end restaurants do well, but they are the exception, not the norm. The median hourly wage of waitstaff in the district in May 2017 was only $11.86, including tips. At that time, D.C.’s minimum wage was $11.50 per hour. In other words, the typical D.C. server made a mere 36 cents above the minimum wage.

"

This is where you are wrong. I'm the Datacomm expert at an electrical company, we specialize in automation and safety equipment of agriculture facilities like grain elevators, fertilizer plants, mills, etc.

We have plenty of journeymen that make six figures. Its more about how much you want to work. Simple as that. And moving up to become a master is more about bookwork than anything, nothing more than a test you need to take. Many are not cutout for the master test.

We have a pretty high turn around. Most of our guys travel, so really you only gets the weekends off. Unless you are on a two week trip. It is a great way to make money, but personal life can suffer. It is really hard to keep new guys around. Either too lazy or they can't handle the hours. Any Trade job is crap work for the first year. Expect to be pushing a Broom quite often, along with digging holes, bending/treading pipe, and all the other crap fetch work.

Sadly kids these days are not taught what a 401k can do for you and what stocking money away into such programs at a young age can mean for you when you are older.

How do people not read entire posts and take them as a whole rather than just picking the part they don't agree with? Why would anyone do a job they hated for longer than they felt the need to? Also where is the specialized training for "automation and safety equipment of agriculture facilities like grain elevators, fertilizer plants, mills, etc." Are there as many schools for trade jobs as there are for academia? That was the point I made in my post along with money not mattering as much as being able to find something someone enjoys and getting the training they need to get into the work and a career progression system people can use to move up. There are plenty of hard working people in the world at every age, but it's hard to notice them because they are always working.

I don't see how working 16 hours a day on the road for 5 to 14 days in a row sounds like a job everyone is going to want to do. Only being home for 4 - 8 days a month sounds terrible. Paying for rent and all the other costs for setting up a place sounds stupid when you only get to use them for 8 days a month at the most and 0 days at the worst. That's not a pay issue or a people issue, that job just sucks for most people.

No matter how much money I could make I'll never choose to work in a job where I'll be working 12 hours a day in the middle of the night again. The money just isn't worth it. Several years of my life are gone from my memory because I slept only 2-4 hours a day for months at a time and every day was the same. $130k after taxes wasn't enough to keep me there and two years after I left no one I worked with still works there. There is a difference between hard work that matters and working hard for no reason.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

You have no idea what you are talking about if you are going to make such vague statements. No one is going to be making $300 a night every night working at a Denny's or Applebees. People don't tip that high on meals costing under $20. Let's say a waiter has 4 tables for an hour each with 4 people (a four top) each meal cost $20 for a total of $80 each table. Lets say they tip 15% each that's $48 an hour. That situation is very generous, but also only realistic for two nights a week for about three to four hours per night. The rest of the week there are fewer tables with people spending significantly less money on their meals and tipping less. I doubt there are enough high end restaurants in Wisconsin to provide $300 in tips every hour every night of the week to every server. The situation you gave "a good night" is like expecting every night to be mother's day which was the biggest night of the year for a lot of American restaurants and certainly was for the OG I worked at in Montgomery, Alabama. A person on the wait staff doesn't make the same amount of money for every hour of the day. Sometimes wait staff are wrapping silverware and not serving tables at all while making less than $3 an hour for that work.
Here is a quote from the Economic Policy Institute about tipped work in the DC area:

"Tipped work is overwhelmingly low-wage work, even in Washington, D.C. Some tipped workers at high-end restaurants do well, but they are the exception, not the norm. The median hourly wage of waitstaff in the district in May 2017 was only $11.86, including tips. At that time, D.C.’s minimum wage was $11.50 per hour. In other words, the typical D.C. server made a mere 36 cents above the minimum wage."

I don't want to rain on your parade, but from my experience working in a restaurant for 5 years, waitstaff isn't fully reporting all their tips like they should be. I don't know of one waiter or waitress that reported all their tips. You won't find accurate data to help support your point about the median hourly wage of waitstaff because they don't report it properly. I watched waiters make $300 in tips some nights and only report 10-25%, but none of them ever reported their total tips.

I'm not saying waiting on tables is easy or lucrative by any means, but some people can make good money from it depending on location and if they put in good hours. I just know from first hand that waitstaff do not fully report their tips. If by some chance you know a waiter or waitress that does, they are a rare bread.

 

[Bobbydpue]

There is a lot of potential in the States for these professions. Go to a trade school, learn the ropes. Do some actual work to learn and gain experience and go into business yourself. You can make a lot of money right now being a good electrician or plumber or HVAC tech - it does require dedication and hard work, but with the demand so high you'd never be hard to find work and you'd make a lot of money as long as you're good at the work and honest (word of mouth is big in these businesses).

Some of the larger companies around my area that does plumbing or HVAC, they have some of the worst (most worthless) workers that are incompetent and shouldn't be in the profession (maybe they hate the work? maybe they just suck at it? either way, they shouldn't be allowed to do the work). The wife's aunt was having issues with draining in a kitchen sink, 3 different big name plumbing companies came through and couldn't figure out what the problem was. I'm no plumber, but I know draining issues can happen if the garbage disposal fails. I went and took a quick look and found the garbage disposal was dead and clogged. Seriously....water from the tap goes into the garbage disposal and from there runs into the trap....not one of them checked the disposal. I offered to replace the garbage disposal for her, but the wife's dad said he would come back in a few days to her aunt's place and do it for her. After the garbage disposal was replaced her sink was no longer draining poorly and the problem was resolved.

HVAC workers, I've found one company (it's a small company that has about 10 techs that work for them) that's extremely good at their job. The techs are knowledgeable, know how to find and fix issues and get them resolved on the first visit. Several other big name companies are awful, do $hit work and don't correctly fix the problems. I had one company come through and said the AC unit was low on Freon and charged the AC system back up. I asked why an enclosed system would be low on Freon and they just kind of shrugged and said it happens sometimes.....a few months later the AC unit was blowing warm air again. I tried another company - was told the same thing. AC charged with Freon. A couple months later the AC unit was blowing warm air again. I found a third company and an older gentleman came out, said an enclosed system shouldn't be leaking Freon and he brought out his sniffer. He found that the A coil was leaking. He said this is why the Freon is low and needs to be refilled, but he couldn't do it until the A coil was replaced.

The small company is the only ones I call for checkups and if there are problems. They come out quickly, properly identify the problem and get it resolved. I've suggested to multiple people to call this company for AC and furnace issues that live in my area.

Learning a trade is something that should happen in high school. People aren't taught a trade or how to learn a trade on their own in high school. Trade Certifications and being able to prove proficiencies should be a much bigger deal than they are. If you go to a place where they are certified, you should get good service by people who know what they are doing.

The issues you have aren't related to people they are related to unregulated repair businesses. Also Freon has been banned since the 2010.

 

[Bobbydpue]

I don't want to rain on your parade, but from my experience working in a restaurant for 5 years, waitstaff isn't fully reporting all their tips like they should be. I don't know of one waiter or waitress that reported all their tips. You won't find accurate data to help support your point about the median hourly wage of waitstaff because they don't report it properly. I watched waiters make $300 in tips some nights and only report 10-25%, but none of them ever reported their total tips.

I'm not saying waiting on tables is easy or lucrative by any means, but some people can make good money from it depending on location and if they put in good hours. I just know from first hand that waitstaff do not fully report their tips. If by some chance you know a waiter or waitress that does, they are a rare bread.

Again, how much money is a person going to make on a slow night? Not as much as they are going to make on a Friday night, that's for sure.

The whole point I was making was it's not a stable way of making money. A person can't go into waiting tables expecting a specific amount of money per hour every hour of their work day. Best case scenarios are not a good way of presenting evidence.

Fast Food and casual dining jobs are not career jobs they are jobs people take while they try to find a better job and when people lost their jobs due to the pandemic they found jobs outside of the service industry. That's one of the reasons why they are having issue finding people to work, it has nothing to do with food service worker being lazy. The hours sucks, the work is hard and the pay is reliant on the kindness of the public.

 

[DZillaXx]

Learning a trade is something that should happen in high school. People aren't taught a trade or how to learn a trade on their own in high school.

You wouldn't be able to teach a trade in High school. It takes a good 4 years for an electrician. With many on site hours along with many non working hours. They do a lot more for you than a 2 year college degree.

Its easier to teach someone to code in highschool than how not to die from being stupid around high voltage power lines...

 

[Neatfeatguy]

This world is going to hell in a handbasket! Sadly we can save the potatoes so I guess we make mashed potatoes lol!

And vokda!