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As someone from a country where this happens (in Brazil it's mandatory to have employees to handle fuel pumps in order to protect jobs), I think it's crazy to e
by nvivo 9y ago
As someone from a country where this happens (in Brazil it's mandatory to have employees to handle fuel pumps in order to protect jobs), I think it's crazy to even think this is a good idea. We have very expensive fuel and I'm required to wait in line because I need to wait for an employee to be there to do something I can do faster. As result, we have terrible service with an expensive price.
Jobs must exist by market demand, artificially creating jobs is the worst thing a country can do. Every law had good intentions, it's always the indirect side effects that cause problems.
- Spooky23 9y agoI don't think these things are very much related. I live in New York... New Jersey has mandatory pump attendants and the prices are all on-par or cheaper than surrounding states. For all of the bellyaching, i don't think that people are as expensive as they seem.
- mathattack 9y agoHow much of that is due to taxes?
- AlgorithmicTime 9y agoNot much, our gas tax went up massively last year and is now near the top of state gas taxes.
- downrightmike 9y ago18.4 cents per gallon (3.75 liters or so) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...
- nvivo 9y agoHere in Brazil I know from published statistcs that atendees make up about 25% of the running costs of a fuel station. Mostly due to taxes over the payroll.
- Retric 9y agoBut fuel stations have vary narrow profit margins. If you spend 40$ filling up they are often taking less than 1$ in operating costs. Gas stations are really cheap to operate it's the actual gas and CC processing fees that are expensive.
- nvivo 9y agoI don't pretend to have the full numbers, but I guess things are more complicated here in Brazil than in the US. A common fuel station here usually have 8 pumps, and usually 4 employees to operate at a time. Due to laws on working hours, etc, there may be 2 or 3 shifts. Without going into peak hours and different # of people per shifts, a standard station may easily have 10-15 employees. Then multiply what you pay to each employee by 2 due to taxes, etc. Not saying it's the highest of the expenses, but employees in Brazil adds up to the operation costs. It's one of the main complaints in business here.
- Retric 9y agoBallpark 1,000 people filling up per day at 40$ each. 40,000 / 24 hours = 1,666$ per hour 4 people are not even in the ballpark of 1,666$ per hour and even that's high as you don't need 4 people 24/7. Again, it's not free, but operating pumps is far from the expensive bit.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Retric 9y agoIf someone is was paid a 'ludicrous' 20$ an hour, and averages helping an average of say 20 people per hour that's adding less than 10 cents a gallon to the price of gas. Which is not zero, but hardly causing 'high' gas prices, and reality is it's going to be significantly less than that.
- VLM 9y agoYet the market demands 24x7 operation and there will be many hours of perhaps 2 people per hour. On average it just doesn't work. And medical insurance alone costs $15/hr. Total lifetime cost of paying someone to work a shift is probably that $20 its just that the paycheck only includes 7.25 worth of it, the guys medical care doesn't disappear because he's poor we just pay higher taxes and higher rates, ditto food he doesn't stop eating because he's poor we just pay more money for EBT. So the cost to the complete system, to the civilization, to everyone in that civilization counting all the costs, is at least $20/hr, that's not ludicrous at all.
- Retric 9y ago15$/hr for medical insurance * 40 hour weeks * ~4 weeks a month = 2,400$/month. 1/4 of that buys great coverage for one person which is ~3.75$/hr + 7.25$/h = 11$/hour. Second one person can operate more than one pump. In a peak hour you can probably hit 50+. Also, one person from 10pm - 6am then 2 people from 6-2pm and 2 people from 2pm to 10pm means that 2 people per hour occurs when you have fewer people. Further, they will be doing stuff like cleaning during that down time meaning it effectively costs less than 1 person at night. Also, many gas stations don't operate 24 / 7. You may have one on each side of the street during the day and then one shuts down at night. PS: Small Gas stations average 500-1,000 people per day. / 24 hours that's 20-40/h on average.