Hearing stories from family up there, I wouldn’t be surprised.
My teenage cousin makes almost as much as I do and she’s flipping burgers at McDonalds. It’s also not that uncommon here to have fast food places closed in the evenings/at night because there’s not enough staff.
My closest video store cut back on hours also (during the week they close at 6, weekends is 10 where they used to be open to 9 or 10 during the week and midnight on weekends).
I also heard recently that Outback closed here, but the letter on the door said it was because of the jump in rent though lack of employees was probably also a factor.
This is really a specific case of the general situation where a business will no longer supply its good to the market because of an increase in the cost of an input (in this case, labor). Rare is the job that no one will take at a high enough wage. However, it’s quite possible that if such a high wage were paid, there would be no profit left over for the owner and/or consumers would not pay the price needed to result in a profit. Further, the cutoff isn’t simply no profit for the owner, but rather less profit than the owner could get for an alternate use of his investment. If it costs $20 an hour to get someone to flip burgers, who is going to pay that? Are people going to pay $10 for a McDonalds burger? Is the owner going to stay in business while making no profit, or less profit than he could make in another town? So I would answer the OP, not exactly. But businesses close all the time at least in part because no one wants to work there at a wage the market will bear.
I once read that ski resorts in Vail or Aspen had a rough time with staffing. Housing there is very pricey, so they had to offer rooms to the help. Skiing’s not a year-round thing, so a lot of the jobs are seasonal. They pay handsomely, so a worker can get temporarily rich and ski all she wants. At the end of the season, though, it’s back to school or find another job.
Short Version: The boss wanted to cap how much an employee can be tipped by customers. This could have meant up to a $20,000 pay cut for some employees. :eek:
Should a situation like this ever come up in our readers’ lives, the answer is to contact the local probate court (also known as the chancery court or the surrogate’s court), and ask who has been appointed as administrator of the decedent’s estate. If there is no administrator, they will arrange for a temporary administrator. It’s not uncommon for people to die with no known relatives, and there are procedures in place in every state and province for such a situation.
I have seen several small trucking companies just die and close up when no drivers would work for them. Usually due to poor pay and very restrictive policies on the part of the owners, or the service to the customers is so bad that no one calls them to make deliveries.
Bars just die often when the regulars quit coming in, but there is usually a new owner, if only in name in a few days since a bar, if operated properly can be a gold mine.