Relax, many of the service staff who immediately took up a side hustle are going to turn those into small businesses when this is over.
And lots of other people too, who stumbled into something they now find they can turn a profit at.
It already has. The unemployment benefits have already been extended beyond the intial timeline based on continuing high unemployment.
Another example of the same dynamic is the rent/mortgage forbearance rules. As a result of these rules, many people have gotten much further in arrears than they would otherwise have gotten, and now it’s going to be that much harder for them ever to pay. Any time the issue of ending the forbearance comes up, this itself becomes an issue and a driver of extending it.
They’re going to start their own Instacarts? Because that’s what most of them have been doing for money around here.
Prior to covid, restaurants would:
- Only work you 39 hours per week so you didn’t get benefits.
- Change the schedule weekly or biweekly so you couldn’t get a second job.
- Spread the 39 hours over 7 days so shifts were 4-6 hours
- Schedule split shifts so you work the lunch and the evening but have to go home without pay for a few hours in the afternoon.
- Pay under minimum wage if you get tips
- Require you to bring your own bank
- Shortages come out of your bank
The only thing that made it bearable was tips and and you don’t get good tips at 50% capacity or with curbside pickup. If an industry has never guaranteed a decent schedule (in it’s history, not just covid), why would someone potentially screw up unemployment for that?
Mortgages, car payments, etc. can simply be extended. Rent? That’s going to pile up if you can’t pay in full.
Someone else in my apartment complex mentioned that one of their neighbors was going to be evicted, and added, “I didn’t think they could do that right now.” I replied that they can’t do that for not paying full rent, but they certainly could for other reasons, like not following common-sense rules like excessive noise, selling drugs out of their apartment, engaging in other activities that put other tenants at risk, etc. etc. etc.
Maybe all those New York Times articles are true and all those ex-employees are on OnlyFans.
Covid is still a factor. If things continue much past when social distancing is no longer an issue, then that starts getting into where you are talking about.
As businesses are being allowed to come back online, they are sopping up the labor pool. I think that we are going to be seeing a shortage in employees fairly quickly, and there will be no reason to continue unemployment benefits at the scale and rules that they are.
It’s probably not a bad idea to continue to have them be a bit on the more generous side than they typically are, but the big thing is that right now, you don’t have to be seeking work to get them. Once that rule expires, people are going to need to go back to work, as there will be lots of places that need them.
That’s been an issue, and will probably continue to be an issue. I know people who rent out properties who are hurting right now, as they are behind on their mortgage as they haven’t been getting rent.
Not sure what the best way to fix that is, but some sort of prorated forbearance, where you only have to pay your back rent at say 10% over your current rent, along with financial assistance to those who are in the hole, should help to straighten it out.
But you are right, it’s a mess that’s going to require a fair amount of cooperation, as well as a bit of compromise from all parties, to work out.
Some restaurants are like that. Not all, and probably not the majority.
You do know it’s laughably easy to apply for work on line and be in compliance with the job search requirements, right?
It’s also laughably easy that those aerospace engineer jobs at Boeing never gave you a call back so you could decline the 6 figure salary, right?
I think another factor with 2 (retirees) is the increased challenge of working from home in a Zoom world. Also, there are probably some who were debating retirement and losing the social aspects of the office helped them decide that it was time to retire.
You wrote about business structure. I responded pointing out that business structure choice involves far more than just “tax avoidance”, which you have not even shown is happening, and your objection is that sole proprietorship businesses aren’t “companies”, a word that neither of us had used until now. Thus your objection is irrelevant and invalid.
I wonder if a good number of people who work these types of jobs have been made homeless in the past year? If so, I can see that being a detriment to returning to work at all.
Thanks for pointing that out. After I read the OP, I was disappointed that COVID wasn’t mentioned in many of the replies. Seems like that would be the #1 issue for most.
On 5 - women dropping out due to school closures - until school gets back, they can’t go back to work if it involves days unless their husband is on board - and truly on board. And they may determine they don’t need to. If they are getting by on one income now, and don’t enjoy working (especially something like a restaurant job, with uneven pay and hours), and their kids are thriving with homeschooling, they may decide to say “fuck the public school system, this works way better for my kids.” But homeschooling kids IS a full time job.
And there is actually getting sick. One of my friends is on leave because the stress of working through Covid sent her into a spiral of health issues. Others have let issues build because they don’t want to be at the doctor - its a good place for viruses to spread. Some are experiencing some long haul symptoms - and maybe they’ll go back to work, but it might not end up being the physically demanding on your feet for six hours waiting tables.
And finally, there are waitstaff who used the last fourteen months to explore other career options. They finished a degree. They actually got that freelance writing career to the point that they can support themselves. They found a different job in a different industry and are enjoying it. They (as one bartender I know did) got their real estate license and have been making bank through the weird housing boom.
Another thing I thought of is how many people broke the waiter/bartender lifestyle habit and don’t want to go back to it? Getting off work at 11 pm or much later, almost always working weekends, sleeping until noon. Once you realise there’s a different way, a lot of people aren’t going to want to go back.
The reverse might go for kitchen prep people who used to go in as early as 5 am.
I think it likely that unemployment is responsible for some portion of the shortages. My response, though, is so what? I believe the over all benefit of the payments overrides the downside of staff shortages.
I suppose that if someone could prove to me that a vast majority of those getting payments are staying home because of the money I might change my mind but I’m not sure how one could do that.
I mean, they are staying home because of the money. If they weren’t getting it, they’d be out looking for a job. Even if the money that they are getting isn’t as much as they would working, it does cost money to work, and many people would be willing to take a pay cut if it meant not having to work.
There are jobs to be had. Everywhere around here is hiring, I’m hiring. There is a labor shortage going on right now.
Now, as I said earlier, this is a feature, not a bug, as long as we want people staying home to reduce transmission of COVID. As we are moving out of it though, people do need to start getting back to work, there’s work that needs to be done.
Probably different situations in different areas.
A news article I just read interviewed a restaurant owner, who said that the timing in his place has shifted dramatically. Instead of a steady flow from 4:00 happy hour to 11:00 late night snacks, it is now: Nothing, nothing, nothing SLAMMED from 5:00 - 6:00 when everyone wants pickup or delivery, then nothing, nothing, nothing.
So he’s only able to offer a 2 hour shift for 4 people. And not many folks want to do this (or are able to do it)
I hope this isn’t paywalled. ‘We Just Can’t Do This Anymore’ - The Dispatch
What’s not mentioned in the article about the Ohio diner is that the owner was a vocal anti mask guy.
My cite for that is it’s mentioned frequently by multiple local people in the comments.
Overall unemployment is dropping. So it’s hard to believe that the enhanced UI is having that dramatic an effect. It might be having a disproportionate effect on some areas of work that relied on people’s unstable economic circumstances.
I think the exodus of a lot of women from the workforce is going to be more far-reaching than the enhanced unemployment. Now is a decent time to try to figure out a long-term solution to the situation we have now where so many people just kind of uprooted and don’t know the path forward while at the same time businesses don’t have a great way of predicting what the workforce will look like in the new normal. I think using enhanced unemployment as an automatic stabilizer as not a terrible idea personally, although I think basic income is probably going to be the best policy in the near future.