In states (all have Repub governors) that cut off $300 extended unemployment benefits, job vacancies are still not being filled

[Dulanic]

My wife got kicked off UI since we are in Texas. She came from the events industry, trade shows specifically. They still aren't hiring back many yet and we've heard they are trying to screw over the prior employees by adding a bunch of stuff to any rehires like non compete clauses etc... Will she take that if offered? Unsure. The live events industry has huge ups and downs. If it is non compete during employment, maybe, but not if it extends past employment.

Employers are unwilling to raise pay to compete so their positions remain unfilled. The main reason? If you're offering $9 an hour, why wouldn't someone just go to Amazon and make $15 at the warehouse? So yeah, this kind of shows that it wasn't just unemployment that was stopping people from working. My wife can look for a job, but is she going to take $12 after working for 30 years and making > $50? Hell no. Once you move down, it will take longer to move back up. For now she is self employed doing various contract jobs at least.

 

[K1052]

I think there biggest issue with rail is the speed or lack there of. I worked at a skid company for awhile. We moved our plant next to a rail spar. To get from Tulsa to the port of Houston would've taken like 2 weeks at twice the cost of truck, which took 1 day.

I'm sure we could have rail much better, but first we'd have to stop massively subsidizing long haul trucking.

Yeah the freight RRs don't move anything quickly anymore besides high priority intermodal which will beat a truck from LA to Chicago. Carload business from coal and oil is declining though so they're going to be incentivized to figure it out again soon.

 

[ElFenix]

chicago is completely backed up rn:

Chicago railyards were bound to follow LA's shipping backlog - Marketplace

Given the history of U.S. railroads, a chokepoint in the Windy City was "inevitable" once cargo started backing up elsewhere.

www.marketplace.org

 

[K1052]

chicago is completely backed up rn:

Chicago railyards were bound to follow LA's shipping backlog - Marketplace

Given the history of U.S. railroads, a chokepoint in the Windy City was "inevitable" once cargo started backing up elsewhere.

www.marketplace.org

Heh same as it ever was. Main problem now seems to be a shortage of day cab and drayage drivers to move containers around and clear the terminals quickly with the surge.

Air cargo has already been dealing with super high demand also. ORD built a ginormous new air cargo facility a couple years ago that is now well over capacity. Logistics companies short drivers for that too.

 

[hal2kilo]

Heh same as it ever was. Main problem now seems to be a shortage of day cab and drayage drivers to move containers around and clear the terminals quickly with the surge.

Air cargo has already been dealing with super high demand also. ORD built a ginormous new air cargo facility a couple years ago that is now well over capacity. Logistics companies short drivers for that too.

Piss tests.

 

[soundforbjt]

Indiana and Maryland had to reinstate the $300 weekly benefits.

 

[senseamp]

My wife got kicked off UI since we are in Texas. She came from the events industry, trade shows specifically. They still aren't hiring back many yet and we've heard they are trying to screw over the prior employees by adding a bunch of stuff to any rehires like non compete clauses etc... Will she take that if offered? Unsure. The live events industry has huge ups and downs. If it is non compete during employment, maybe, but not if it extends past employment.

Employers are unwilling to raise pay to compete so their positions remain unfilled. The main reason? If you're offering $9 an hour, why wouldn't someone just go to Amazon and make $15 at the warehouse? So yeah, this kind of shows that it wasn't just unemployment that was stopping people from working. My wife can look for a job, but is she going to take $12 after working for 30 years and making > $50? Hell no. Once you move down, it will take longer to move back up. For now she is self employed doing various contract jobs at least.

So happy I live in California where non-competes are unenforceable.

 

[PingSpike]

Indiana and Maryland had to reinstate the $300 weekly benefits.

Really? Why is that? I saw one of the democrat's bills involved just spending the earmarked unemployment benefit GOP states are dumping on something else.

Latest goal post moving I heard was that everyone is waiting for school to start so they have daycare and then they'll all be crawling back.

 

[MrSquished]

I'm in north Carolina and we have not been able to get takeout food the last two nights from a bunch of the better local joints because places are short-staffed and don't do takeout, or either closed on a day they would normally be open or just won't answer the phone. It's either dine in and deal with crazy waits, (my sister doesn't want to do dine in anyway) and these places are now not offering take out due to being too busy.

Another place with the best breakfast is literally just shut down for breakfast entirely, I went today and it was closed, turns out they now just open for dinner and lunch, called them up the guy said it was temporary until they could hire and train more staff.

I went to a Publix and got some seasoned corn meal flour, stopped at a seafood market and got a pint of oysters, because apparently that's the only option to make pan fried oysters that are any good

I haven't experienced this anywhere near me, though I have heard of some places saying staffing was tight in other towns. I coincidentally have been to a lot of places to eat/takeout the last month because my fridge was broken for three weeks. Zero issues.

Anybody else have local food businesses that just can't offer basic services these days?

 

[vi edit]

I've been to Texas, IL and live in Portland. Every city I was in in the last few months had the same issue "We're sorry for delays and limited menus, we don't have the staff to support a full menu/service".

Hell, here in Portland food trucks were offering $20/hr for people to work. Yikes.

 

[woolfe9998]

I'm in north Carolina and we have not been able to get takeout food the last two nights from a bunch of the better local joints because places are short-staffed and don't do takeout, or either closed on a day they would normally be open or just won't answer the phone. It's either dine in and deal with crazy waits, (my sister doesn't want to do dine in anyway) and these places are now not offering take out due to being too busy.

Another place with the best breakfast is literally just shut down for breakfast entirely, I went today and it was closed, turns out they now just open for dinner and lunch, called them up the guy said it was temporary until they could hire and train more staff.

I went to a Publix and got some seasoned corn meal flour, stopped at a seafood market and got a pint of oysters, because apparently that's the only option to make pan fried oysters that are any good

I haven't experienced this anywhere near me, though I have heard of some places saying staffing was tight in other towns. I coincidentally have been to a lot of places to eat/takeout the last month because my fridge was broken for three weeks. Zero issues.

Anybody else have local food businesses that just can't offer basic services these days?

A soup and sandwich place I frequently have lunch at is crowded out the door every day. Wasn't like that before. I can see that they have 3 on staff during the lunch rush when they used to have 5. There is a help wanted sign.

No one seems to want these retail jobs anymore. Not sure of all the reasons but one reason seems to be that people are afraid of catching COVID at work, particularly in retail where you deal with customers all day.

If people would just get the damn vaccine that is one barrier to employment which will go away.

 

[vi edit]

It's not just fear of Covid, but it's also having to deal with shitty people that don't want to play nice with public health safety. A restaurant worker isn't paid enough to deal with bitchy anti-maskers in addition to everything else they have to deal with.

 

[Fenixgoon]

A soup and sandwich place I frequently have lunch at is crowded out the door every day. Wasn't like that before. I can see that they have 3 on staff during the lunch rush when they used to have 5. There is a help wanted sign.

No one seems to want these retail jobs anymore. Not sure of all the reasons but one reason seems to be that people are afraid of catching COVID at work, particularly in retail where you deal with customers all day.

If people would just get the damn vaccine that is one barrier to employment which will go away.

How's the pay/benefits? Seems like things are finally catching up.
My grocery store now has a sign guaranteeing minimum $15/hr.

 

[woolfe9998]

How's the pay/benefits? Seems like things are finally catching up.
My grocery store now has a sign guaranteeing minimum $15/hr.

Dunno. I haven't applied for work there.

But that's the upside of a labor shortage. Wages should go up. So long as the labor shortage doesn't persist much longer, long term consequences are probably more good than bad.

 

[nickqt]

Minimum wage work has always been shit. So, making less than a living wage is already a reason to move back in with parents or shack up with someone to split rent.

Add on to that the people who have made it a point to go out during the pandemic were people who didn't take social distancing seriously and attempted to remove their masks when around people making minimum wage, and no fucking shit there's a labor shortage. Dealing with a bunch of shitbags while getting paid shit is a no-win situation.

If you want to make money selling fucking Rodeo Burgers, you better be willing to pay someone to deal with the shitbags screaming at the 3 staff members trying to keep up, or your business is no longer sustainable. Welcome to two-sided capitalism, mother fucker.

 

[JEDI]

I've been to Texas, IL and live in Portland. Every city I was in in the last few months had the same issue "We're sorry for delays and limited menus, we don't have the staff to support a full menu/service".

Hell, here in Portland food trucks were offering $20/hr for people to work. Yikes.

min wage in portland is $15/hr i thought?

 

[Zorba]

So happy I live in California where non-competes are unenforceable.

This is one area the Left - Right spectrum wraps around and touches. They are also unenforceable in Oklahoma, with no exemptions, unlike California that has a few exemptions. My company made me sign one saying it would be handled in Delaware, though, of course, no fucking idea why we allow shit like that in the US. Luckily Delaware has through out multiple change of venue clauses from states that make non-competes unenforceable.

Instead of just making them void, though, states should make them straight up illegal. Ask an employee to sign one, you have to pay a fine equal to 5 years of that person's salary.

 

[JEDI]

This is one area the Left - Right spectrum wraps around and touches. They are also unenforceable in Oklahoma, with no exemptions, unlike California that has a few exemptions. My company made me sign one saying it would be handled in Delaware, though, of course, no fucking idea why we allow shit like that in the US. Luckily Delaware has through out multiple change of venue clauses from states that make non-competes unenforceable.

Instead of just making them void, though, states should make them straight up illegal. Ask an employee to sign one, you have to pay a fine equal to 5 years of that person's salary.

the PRO act will make state right to work laws illegal?

House Democrats Pass Bill That Would Protect Worker Organizing Efforts

The PRO Act would provide protections to workers trying to organize, limiting what companies can do to disrupt union membership campaigns. The bill is unlikely to advance in the Senate.

www.npr.org

 

[Zorba]

the PRO act will make state right to work laws illegal?

House Democrats Pass Bill That Would Protect Worker Organizing Efforts

The PRO Act would provide protections to workers trying to organize, limiting what companies can do to disrupt union membership campaigns. The bill is unlikely to advance in the Senate.

www.npr.org

Not really the same as non-compete, but that looks good to me. Right to work is really "right to freeload," which is why Republicans love it so much.

 

[Stokely]

It's not just fear of Covid, but it's also having to deal with shitty people that don't want to play nice with public health safety. A restaurant worker isn't paid enough to deal with bitchy anti-maskers in addition to everything else they have to deal with.

This is right on IMO.

 

[soundforbjt]

How's the pay/benefits? Seems like things are finally catching up.
My grocery store now has a sign guaranteeing minimum $15/hr.

My grocery store pays $16/ hr for filling online shopping orders.

 

[hal2kilo]

Just saw a report on CNBC that says, according to Homebase, there is no difference in people going back to work in states that dropped the unemployment boost.
As a matter of fact, the states that still have the $300 dollars are getting more people employed.
Damn facts always get in the way of political agendas.

 

[Aikouka]

It's not just fear of Covid, but it's also having to deal with shitty people that don't want to play nice with public health safety. A restaurant worker isn't paid enough to deal with bitchy anti-maskers in addition to everything else they have to deal with.

A week or so ago, someone on my local area's sub-reddit brought up a question about the shortage of workers, and the answer seemed to be that it wasn't really an issue with COVID that was causing people to not go back to work. The issue for restaurants is that their employees that were furloughed ended up finding better paying jobs outside of the food service industry, and aren't willing to go back. Essentially, the pandemic gave people the two necessary resources to find a better job: time and money. Since they weren't employed, they could look for jobs during normal business hours (time), and they didn't have to worry about support while in-between jobs (money). (The latter is far more of a problem with low wage earners as they tend to live paycheck to paycheck.)

 

[ondma]

A week or so ago, someone on my local area's sub-reddit brought up a question about the shortage of workers, and the answer seemed to be that it wasn't really an issue with COVID that was causing people to not go back to work. The issue for restaurants is that their employees that were furloughed ended up finding better paying jobs outside of the food service industry, and aren't willing to go back. Essentially, the pandemic gave people the two necessary resources to find a better job: time and money. Since they weren't employed, they could look for jobs during normal business hours (time), and they didn't have to worry about support while in-between jobs (money). (The latter is far more of a problem with low wage earners as they tend to live paycheck to paycheck.)

Makes sense. We will see if those who haven't found better jobs will trickle back into the workforce as benefits run out and mortgage/rent moratoriums expire. The other big expense that has been deferred is student loan payment. That was set to expire soon as well, but now has been extended to January 2022.

Edit: The delta surge has complicated things a lot, because it is now hazardous to go back to work. Where I live, we should be masking up indoors according to the CDC guidelines, but so far I have seen maybe only half the people in stores like Target going back to mask wearing.

 

[hal2kilo]

How Do Unemployment Benefits Relate to Job Search Behavior? - Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (chicagofed.org)

Found this while looking for a link to what I posted above.