As someone that spent years in this particular industry I can tell you that it isn't entirely about covid. Food has been a notoriously shit job for a long time. Particularly in the hourly wage arena. It's why I quit doing it. Its why many of my friends in the last year quit doing it. Simply put there is and always has been a trend of paying resto workers as little as possible. Finding a solid kitchen to work for with non shit bag owners is often far harder then it should be. It's also an industry that often fails to pay people outright at all. I've had it happen in more then one state with more then one owner. Bounced paychecks, short paychecks, to outright no paycheck -all long before covid. Does it mean their all like that? No. But the "its totally cause covid and people are getting paid too much not to work" is only part of the story and these scenarios in part point to a much larger and prevalent issue within the industry as a whole.
Its not just the restaurant business. Im in automotive. We can find drivers for the tow trucks. We have 6 new trucks sitting around doing nothing with 2 more on the way. But no drivers. No applications. And if somebody does start working,its only a couple days till they decide collecting checks for nothing is a better situation.
As someone that spent years in this particular industry I can tell you that it isn't entirely about covid. Food has been a notoriously shit job for a long time. Particularly in the hourly wage arena. It's why I quit doing it. Its why many of my friends in the last year quit doing it. Simply put there is and always has been a trend of paying resto workers as little as possible. Finding a solid kitchen to work for with non shit bag owners is often far harder then it should be. It's also an industry that often fails to pay people outright at all. I've had it happen in more then one state with more then one owner. Bounced paychecks, short paychecks, to outright no paycheck -all long before covid. Does it mean their all like that? No. But the "its totally cause covid and people are getting paid too much not to work" is only part of the story and these scenarios in part point to a much larger and prevalent issue within the industry as a whole.
Yep
Its not just the restaurant business. Im in automotive. We can find drivers for the tow trucks. We have 6 new trucks sitting around doing nothing with 2 more on the way. But no drivers. No applications. And if somebody does start working,its only a couple days till they decide collecting checks for nothing is a better situation.