5 ms·

A 1 bedroom place where I live costs $1400-1600 (it’s an unusually expensive tourist town) and things are closing down once in a while because of worker shortag

by Rd6n6 5y ago

A 1 bedroom place where I live costs $1400-1600 (it’s an unusually expensive tourist town) and things are closing down once in a while because of worker shortages (Eg, lifeguard shortage was the most recent I saw). Where are these workers supposed to live? I know other places aren’t nearly this bad. I just can’t believe anyone is able to work in retail or food here

XorNot 5y ago
This is hitting the nail dead center: the mock surprise at worker shortages is missing the fact that every metric pointed to this happening pre-COVID as well - the US a whole was in a march towards pricing all it's workers out of their homes at their current wages. COVID has just accelerated the trend.
- vvarren 5y ago
  Ding ding ding, we have the answer. I was in Lake Tahoe recently and my relatives there were saying how I should move there because there’s so many well paying jobs available… but the cheapest rent was like 1600!! This used to be an issue only in tourist towns but now that houses are priced based on how much they can make on Airbnb, versus the traditional model of how much a worker in the area could afford over 30 years, we’re absolutely screwed. Legislation needs to start with vacation rentals.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    > there’s so many well paying jobs > “jobs” Employment, and employees, are not fungible - why do people (and more importantly: the news-media and the people elected to direct the economy) continue to speak of it as though it is?
    - el_dev_hell 5y ago
      > Employment, and employees, are not fungible - why do people (and more importantly: the news-media and the people elected to direct the economy) continue to speak of it as though it is? I've seen this mentioned a few times on HN. I find it a confusing concept. My position is 100% fungible. I write code to solve problems. There are thousands of people that can write equivalent code to solve the same problems. I'm legitimately interested: can you expand on how my position isn't fungible?
      - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
        > My position is 100% fungible It's fungible only when the entire set of available workers shares your competence (i.e. your skill-set, relevant experience, and business domain knowledge) - or - can be quickly trained to acquire such competence. ...and I'll wager that the vast majority (90%-ish?) of the working-age and almost-working-age population in your country is both unqualified to write software professionally and is not interested in spending 2-4 years of their life to study CS or SE to a level sufficient to do the work you currently do. Of the other 10% at least 9.95% of them won't have your business domain knowledge needed to do your job such that you make the right decisions early-on or slow down others by bringing them in for help, and so on. ---------------- What I was complaining about was when it's reported in the news, or ever really said by anyone, that "opening this new coal-mine in Greenhippieville, CA will create 5,000 jobs!" or that "the economy added 10,000 jobs this month" - because the "jobs" those numbers refer to could be anything without further qualification, and doing that will make the conversation too technical for a general audience.
        himinlomax 5y ago
        > ...and I'll wager that the vast majority (90%-ish?) of the working-age and almost-working-age population in your country is both unqualified to write software professionally and is not interested in spending 2-4 years of their life to study CS or SE You left out the most salient point here, most people are entirely unable to write software even if their life depended on it. Just like I doubt I'd be able to write a symphony in 4 years even with a ticking time bomb strapped to my skull.
        railsgirls112 5y ago
        Eh, maybe at a senior dev 10x level. I'd wager that a large segment of the population is totally capable of writing relatively non complex code, given the training/resources that many software devs have (university, internships, online bootcamps, time for side projects). Just like I bet you could write a symphony in 4 years- It probably wouldn't be Mozart, but good enough to meet whatever time bomb requirements.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Vacation rentals are mostly a side effect of the government manipulating asset prices / interest rates - which is the broader issue.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  This is definitely evident in the UK: job shortages in parts of the country with low housing costs worker shortages in parts of th country with high housing costs.
gnarbarian 5y ago
get a roommate. roommates are a critical social developmental step in your life. They teach you how to negotiate boundaries without a direct authority figure. They teach you how to live in a common space with somebody else. roommates teach you that you must be responsible for your actions which affect the other people who live with you. roommates teach you the importance of financial responsibility because when the rent is due you both need to pay up. You may be lazy You may not want to do the dishes, but you know if you take that messy ass plate and you just throw it in the sink it will become a mountain of dirty ass shit and you owe it to somebody else to do your part. If both of you hold up your end of the bargain and perform 3 seconds of work to place that dish in the dishwasher it avoids this tragedy of the commons. roommates teach you that self-discipline is critical for a tolerable society.
- bawolff 5y ago
  ? In a comparison between having a roommate and living alone, i think living alone is more responsibility. There's nobody to call you on your BS when you live alone, just yourself. E.g. Forget to pay your share of the rent when you live with a roommate? Room-mate yells at you. When you live alone you get an eviction notice. Self-discipline is about the self after all. If you need another person there to be disciplined, then you are clearly not self-disciplined. (That said, nothing wrong with roommates, it often makes financial sense and some people like having them, i just dont see the connection to responsibility)
  - 1experience 5y ago
    Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OF06n1jNkM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OF06n1jNkM
- alexgmcm 5y ago
  I mean, don't people learn that at University when they have to live with others? Or maybe if they are in their first job? But when housing costs are such that you have people in their late 20's and early 30's still living with roommates it seems like a societal problem.
goodcanadian 5y ago
Reminds me of Wendy's in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii years ago. They were so desperate for workers they put application forms on the tray when you bought food. Unsurprisingly, they closed down not long after.
- greedo 5y ago
  McDonalds was doing that back in the 80s...
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Wage should be calibrated according to local cost of living. If average rent is $1400, wages after taxes should be $4200 - $5600 a month (3x / 4x rent) minimum. A $15 / hour minimum wage at a reasonable 40 hours / week only gets you $2400 a month, not even considering taxes. And keep in mind, if you get paid minimum wage, your employer is telling you they'd pay you less if they could.
- Fernicia 5y ago
  Or maybe we can just keep building houses until a $2400 salary can afford them their own apartment.
  - kwere 5y ago
    Land Is not a replicabile resource
    - jackson1442 5y ago
      Not necessarily houses then, we could build multifamily. The US sincerely needs condos/townhomes to reign the housing economy back in.
      - mywittyname 5y ago
        Most of the US is not really land constrained. It's really only a very few desirable metros that really need to increase their density.
JeremyNT 5y ago
> A 1 bedroom place where I live costs $1400-1600 (it’s an unusually expensive tourist town) and things are closing down once in a while because of worker shortages (Eg, lifeguard shortage was the most recent I saw). Where are these workers supposed to live? I know other places aren’t nearly this bad. I just can’t believe anyone is able to work in retail or food here This is the crux, because what's happening is that housing is highly inflationary (especially in desirable locations) and wages are failing to match inflation, so entry level workers are being pushed further out to the boonies. Why would they commute all the way into the city centers if they don't actually pay better? An interesting side effect of all the rampant real estate speculation and bidding wars is that cities are becoming dramatically more expensive to live in than the exurbs. I feel like eventually this will result in a much higher cost of living across the board as employers need to account for this difference in their pay scales. The entry level / service industry jobs in these places with insane housing prices will need to pay much better to attract workers, thus making these already expensive-to-live places even more expensive. Perhaps it will eventually create some kind of equilibrium where new towns can provide some of the same quality of life benefits at a fraction of the cost since their real estate isn't so astronomical.

by Rd6n6 5y ago

XorNot 5y ago

This is hitting the nail dead center: the mock surprise at worker shortages is missing the fact that every metric pointed to this happening pre-COVID as well - the US a whole was in a march towards pricing all it's workers out of their homes at their current wages. COVID has just accelerated the trend.

vvarren 5y ago
Ding ding ding, we have the answer. I was in Lake Tahoe recently and my relatives there were saying how I should move there because there’s so many well paying jobs available… but the cheapest rent was like 1600!! This used to be an issue only in tourist towns but now that houses are priced based on how much they can make on Airbnb, versus the traditional model of how much a worker in the area could afford over 30 years, we’re absolutely screwed. Legislation needs to start with vacation rentals.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > there’s so many well paying jobs > “jobs” Employment, and employees, are not fungible - why do people (and more importantly: the news-media and the people elected to direct the economy) continue to speak of it as though it is?
  - el_dev_hell 5y ago
    > Employment, and employees, are not fungible - why do people (and more importantly: the news-media and the people elected to direct the economy) continue to speak of it as though it is? I've seen this mentioned a few times on HN. I find it a confusing concept. My position is 100% fungible. I write code to solve problems. There are thousands of people that can write equivalent code to solve the same problems. I'm legitimately interested: can you expand on how my position isn't fungible?
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      > My position is 100% fungible It's fungible only when the entire set of available workers shares your competence (i.e. your skill-set, relevant experience, and business domain knowledge) - or - can be quickly trained to acquire such competence. ...and I'll wager that the vast majority (90%-ish?) of the working-age and almost-working-age population in your country is both unqualified to write software professionally and is not interested in spending 2-4 years of their life to study CS or SE to a level sufficient to do the work you currently do. Of the other 10% at least 9.95% of them won't have your business domain knowledge needed to do your job such that you make the right decisions early-on or slow down others by bringing them in for help, and so on. ---------------- What I was complaining about was when it's reported in the news, or ever really said by anyone, that "opening this new coal-mine in Greenhippieville, CA will create 5,000 jobs!" or that "the economy added 10,000 jobs this month" - because the "jobs" those numbers refer to could be anything without further qualification, and doing that will make the conversation too technical for a general audience.
      - himinlomax 5y ago
        > ...and I'll wager that the vast majority (90%-ish?) of the working-age and almost-working-age population in your country is both unqualified to write software professionally and is not interested in spending 2-4 years of their life to study CS or SE You left out the most salient point here, most people are entirely unable to write software even if their life depended on it. Just like I doubt I'd be able to write a symphony in 4 years even with a ticking time bomb strapped to my skull.
        railsgirls112 5y ago
        Eh, maybe at a senior dev 10x level. I'd wager that a large segment of the population is totally capable of writing relatively non complex code, given the training/resources that many software devs have (university, internships, online bootcamps, time for side projects). Just like I bet you could write a symphony in 4 years- It probably wouldn't be Mozart, but good enough to meet whatever time bomb requirements.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Vacation rentals are mostly a side effect of the government manipulating asset prices / interest rates - which is the broader issue.
nicoburns 5y ago
This is definitely evident in the UK: job shortages in parts of the country with low housing costs worker shortages in parts of th country with high housing costs.

gnarbarian 5y ago

get a roommate. roommates are a critical social developmental step in your life. They teach you how to negotiate boundaries without a direct authority figure. They teach you how to live in a common space with somebody else. roommates teach you that you must be responsible for your actions which affect the other people who live with you. roommates teach you the importance of financial responsibility because when the rent is due you both need to pay up. You may be lazy You may not want to do the dishes, but you know if you take that messy ass plate and you just throw it in the sink it will become a mountain of dirty ass shit and you owe it to somebody else to do your part. If both of you hold up your end of the bargain and perform 3 seconds of work to place that dish in the dishwasher it avoids this tragedy of the commons. roommates teach you that self-discipline is critical for a tolerable society.

bawolff 5y ago
? In a comparison between having a roommate and living alone, i think living alone is more responsibility. There's nobody to call you on your BS when you live alone, just yourself. E.g. Forget to pay your share of the rent when you live with a roommate? Room-mate yells at you. When you live alone you get an eviction notice. Self-discipline is about the self after all. If you need another person there to be disciplined, then you are clearly not self-disciplined. (That said, nothing wrong with roommates, it often makes financial sense and some people like having them, i just dont see the connection to responsibility)
- 1experience 5y ago
  Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OF06n1jNkM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OF06n1jNkM
alexgmcm 5y ago
I mean, don't people learn that at University when they have to live with others? Or maybe if they are in their first job? But when housing costs are such that you have people in their late 20's and early 30's still living with roommates it seems like a societal problem.

goodcanadian 5y ago

Reminds me of Wendy's in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii years ago. They were so desperate for workers they put application forms on the tray when you bought food. Unsurprisingly, they closed down not long after.

greedo 5y ago
McDonalds was doing that back in the 80s...

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

Wage should be calibrated according to local cost of living. If average rent is $1400, wages after taxes should be $4200 - $5600 a month (3x / 4x rent) minimum. A $15 / hour minimum wage at a reasonable 40 hours / week only gets you $2400 a month, not even considering taxes. And keep in mind, if you get paid minimum wage, your employer is telling you they'd pay you less if they could.

Fernicia 5y ago
Or maybe we can just keep building houses until a $2400 salary can afford them their own apartment.
- kwere 5y ago
  Land Is not a replicabile resource
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    Not necessarily houses then, we could build multifamily. The US sincerely needs condos/townhomes to reign the housing economy back in.
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      Most of the US is not really land constrained. It's really only a very few desirable metros that really need to increase their density.

JeremyNT 5y ago

> A 1 bedroom place where I live costs $1400-1600 (it’s an unusually expensive tourist town) and things are closing down once in a while because of worker shortages (Eg, lifeguard shortage was the most recent I saw). Where are these workers supposed to live? I know other places aren’t nearly this bad. I just can’t believe anyone is able to work in retail or food here This is the crux, because what's happening is that housing is highly inflationary (especially in desirable locations) and wages are failing to match inflation, so entry level workers are being pushed further out to the boonies. Why would they commute all the way into the city centers if they don't actually pay better? An interesting side effect of all the rampant real estate speculation and bidding wars is that cities are becoming dramatically more expensive to live in than the exurbs. I feel like eventually this will result in a much higher cost of living across the board as employers need to account for this difference in their pay scales. The entry level / service industry jobs in these places with insane housing prices will need to pay much better to attract workers, thus making these already expensive-to-live places even more expensive. Perhaps it will eventually create some kind of equilibrium where new towns can provide some of the same quality of life benefits at a fraction of the cost since their real estate isn't so astronomical.