5 ms·

Retail workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work

32 points by throwkeep 5y ago

idiotsecant 5y ago
Good.
villgax 5y ago
Now that they will have higher QOL, we can focus on getting robots to do repetitive tasks better like housekeeping, cooking, billing etc
- p410n3 5y ago
  Not looking forward to a future where a insert CDN here outage stops me from grocery shopping.
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    It's funny you mention that. At my previous workplace, they installed a water dispenser that can also add flavored water and it had a hard dependency on the internet. No internet, no water. I was both annoyed and entertained at the same time.
- dustymcp 5y ago
  Over my dead body will a robot cook for me :D
ungawatkt 5y ago
https://archive.is/tRvbW https://archive.is/tRvbW
perryizgr8 5y ago
Nice! Markets doing what they do best. Retail outlets have two options now: 1. Offer better wages to counteract the "temporary" and "dead-end" nature of the job. 2. Look at automation. I don't think automation is there yet, so the best option is to pay more. After all these workers are doing jobs nobody wants to do. Nobody wants to make a career out of stocking shelves or being a cashier.
- collyw 5y ago
  3. import workers from other countries, particularly people willing to work for less.
aitchnyu 5y ago
Not American, does this imply that there were lots of better jobs for a significant fraction of retail workers, and they somehow didnt take them till the pandemic?
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  > Some are finding less stressful positions at insurance agencies, marijuana dispensaries, banks and local governments. Amateur economist observations: the "pandemic bailout" is booting up the economy. Suddenly now people have money, and with a Democratic administration that isn't trying to drown government in a bathtub. Businesses that were wary of expanding because of the uncertain economy may have also thrown caution to the wind, because hey, pandemic money! There's probably also a lot of pent-up demand, as well as people who suddenly now have some savings and a new-found YOLO attitude because they didn't eat out and fly all over the place the last year and a bit, and want to enjoy life, because who knows when the Epsilon variant will hit...
- stevenicr 5y ago
  Not an economist, or using country level data.. but from limited looking around a medium city the past few months, there are many different things today as opposed to a year or more ago.. There are lots of other jobs, like warehouse, light manufacturing - that also lost a lot of employees to the whole 'stay at home, enjoy gov cheese'.. so there are more jobs available right now in more places, virtually all paying more, than there were before pandemic. with the floods of cash in the market, there are orders for everything - so lots of places hiring, but not so many people eager to take the jobs that almost all pay less then a 'living wage' for the city. So there are tons of jobs outside retail - which mostly pay more - and you get less rude people in your face with the need to smile and take it on the chin for the corporate overlords. No need to take a lot of shit from the gen pop when you are doing warehouse work / driving a forklift / putting online orders into a box. There are many other factors that will be hard to discern - many families or parts of families have been, and will continue to be uprooted because of the changing economic landscape - One of the things I think we are seeing is many deciding it's not worth it to work 2 jobs to have your own place (apartment) when it's actually less stressful to live lots of roommates / multi-generation living (and that's saying something because usually those living situations are difficult mentally and not very comfortable physically either) - these things have been more common since 2008 - but more and more they are becoming the norm for most of the hourly employee class. similar paradigm shifts are happening in the higher paying hourly jobs - the warehouse workers and such. So better jobs are also struggling to get people and some retail people are going there instead. the cost of housing going up and other changes are going to play into this as well. semi-hidden factors are playing a part too - like, retail around here used to be courteous people taking their time, being and polite and getting that back. More and more over the recent years, and for I guess a third of the population, the pandemic has made many people more rude and perhaps the internet is helping them be more 'outspoken' It's one thing to barely scrape by when you have a job you enjoy with lots of nice people - it's not even close to the same when the second part of that changes dramatically - and it is - everywhere from what I have seen. I think there was a time when lgbt people could take refuge in retail jobs where they were (in many retail places) accepted/ celebrated.. and these days I think the amount of harassment working other jobs is less than say a decade ago - these subtle hard to quantify changes in society are certainly having effects. It's going to be REALLY interesting the seismic effect of Amazon now taking employees that would fail a marijuana test.. the labor market in many places have large employers taking advantage of that issue to pay lots of people less money.. This is going to shake the foundations for the labor costs of restaurants and certain large grocery stores quickly if amazon can also change the reputation of being really hard physically and mentally / being bullied by bosses and robots to always perform extra hard.. So there are many factors at play, most of these things are very different today than they were a year ago or so, some are just a little different, but it's certainly not the same as it once was.

32 points by throwkeep 5y ago

Good.

Now that they will have higher QOL, we can focus on getting robots to do repetitive tasks better like housekeeping, cooking, billing etc

p410n3 5y ago
Not looking forward to a future where a insert CDN here outage stops me from grocery shopping.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  It's funny you mention that. At my previous workplace, they installed a water dispenser that can also add flavored water and it had a hard dependency on the internet. No internet, no water. I was both annoyed and entertained at the same time.
dustymcp 5y ago
Over my dead body will a robot cook for me :D

ungawatkt 5y ago

https://archive.is/tRvbW https://archive.is/tRvbW

perryizgr8 5y ago

Nice! Markets doing what they do best. Retail outlets have two options now: 1. Offer better wages to counteract the "temporary" and "dead-end" nature of the job. 2. Look at automation. I don't think automation is there yet, so the best option is to pay more. After all these workers are doing jobs nobody wants to do. Nobody wants to make a career out of stocking shelves or being a cashier.

collyw 5y ago
3. import workers from other countries, particularly people willing to work for less.

aitchnyu 5y ago

Not American, does this imply that there were lots of better jobs for a significant fraction of retail workers, and they somehow didnt take them till the pandemic?

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
> Some are finding less stressful positions at insurance agencies, marijuana dispensaries, banks and local governments. Amateur economist observations: the "pandemic bailout" is booting up the economy. Suddenly now people have money, and with a Democratic administration that isn't trying to drown government in a bathtub. Businesses that were wary of expanding because of the uncertain economy may have also thrown caution to the wind, because hey, pandemic money! There's probably also a lot of pent-up demand, as well as people who suddenly now have some savings and a new-found YOLO attitude because they didn't eat out and fly all over the place the last year and a bit, and want to enjoy life, because who knows when the Epsilon variant will hit...
stevenicr 5y ago
Not an economist, or using country level data.. but from limited looking around a medium city the past few months, there are many different things today as opposed to a year or more ago.. There are lots of other jobs, like warehouse, light manufacturing - that also lost a lot of employees to the whole 'stay at home, enjoy gov cheese'.. so there are more jobs available right now in more places, virtually all paying more, than there were before pandemic. with the floods of cash in the market, there are orders for everything - so lots of places hiring, but not so many people eager to take the jobs that almost all pay less then a 'living wage' for the city. So there are tons of jobs outside retail - which mostly pay more - and you get less rude people in your face with the need to smile and take it on the chin for the corporate overlords. No need to take a lot of shit from the gen pop when you are doing warehouse work / driving a forklift / putting online orders into a box. There are many other factors that will be hard to discern - many families or parts of families have been, and will continue to be uprooted because of the changing economic landscape - One of the things I think we are seeing is many deciding it's not worth it to work 2 jobs to have your own place (apartment) when it's actually less stressful to live lots of roommates / multi-generation living (and that's saying something because usually those living situations are difficult mentally and not very comfortable physically either) - these things have been more common since 2008 - but more and more they are becoming the norm for most of the hourly employee class. similar paradigm shifts are happening in the higher paying hourly jobs - the warehouse workers and such. So better jobs are also struggling to get people and some retail people are going there instead. the cost of housing going up and other changes are going to play into this as well. semi-hidden factors are playing a part too - like, retail around here used to be courteous people taking their time, being and polite and getting that back. More and more over the recent years, and for I guess a third of the population, the pandemic has made many people more rude and perhaps the internet is helping them be more 'outspoken' It's one thing to barely scrape by when you have a job you enjoy with lots of nice people - it's not even close to the same when the second part of that changes dramatically - and it is - everywhere from what I have seen. I think there was a time when lgbt people could take refuge in retail jobs where they were (in many retail places) accepted/ celebrated.. and these days I think the amount of harassment working other jobs is less than say a decade ago - these subtle hard to quantify changes in society are certainly having effects. It's going to be REALLY interesting the seismic effect of Amazon now taking employees that would fail a marijuana test.. the labor market in many places have large employers taking advantage of that issue to pay lots of people less money.. This is going to shake the foundations for the labor costs of restaurants and certain large grocery stores quickly if amazon can also change the reputation of being really hard physically and mentally / being bullied by bosses and robots to always perform extra hard.. So there are many factors at play, most of these things are very different today than they were a year ago or so, some are just a little different, but it's certainly not the same as it once was.