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Could we meet the HN guidelines against editorialization, and call this the less incendiary "Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary"? Some facts: * The numbe

by rsj_hn 5y ago

Could we meet the HN guidelines against editorialization, and call this the less incendiary "Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary"? Some facts: * The number of job openings declined to 10.4 million * Hires decreased to 6.3 million * Separations were unchanged at 6.0 million * Within separations, the number of layoffs decreased but the number of voluntary separations increased to 4.3M within the number of voluntary separations (see https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t04.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t04.htm): * Private industry quits up from 3.87M to 4.1M (increase of 140K workers), primarily driven by Accommodation and Food Services (157K more quits. Wow.). The other separations were not particularly meaningful. Next biggest was healthcare (+30K). Perhaps this is due to the traveling nurses phenomena. Everything else was noise and separations decreased in all other industries (in aggregate) other than Hotels and restaurants. This does point out that the Hotel and Restaurant industry is still being hit hard. Note that just because something is a "quit" doesn't mean that it was voluntary per, se. It could be a buyout offer, or people quitting who have had their hours reduced or are earning much less in tips to keep working. Hotels and Restaurants are definitely hurting due to ongoing lockdowns and reduced travel. Note that in Information, separations declined. In Professional and Business services, separations went from from 697K to 706K (+1.3%). That is statistical noise.

ghaff 5y ago
>This does point out that the Hotel and Restaurant industry is still being hit hard. It's also the case that my observation while traveling to a number of different places the last couple of months is that a lot of restaurants are still having trouble getting staff. I got into one (crowded) restaurant just before it was closing at 3pm on a Sunday and it wasn't reopening until Thursday. A lot of mid-week closures in the city that didn't seem to be the result of weak demand. Now, could they just increase wages until they hire enough people? Possibly. But if it's not a coordinated effort, they'll probably lose out to a competitor and presumably higher prices have some effect on collective demand given that eating out is not a necessity in general. I ate at another restaurant in another city that had explicitly jacked up prices considerably--like maybe 40%. It was empty even though other restaurants in the area looked pretty busy. And service was still pretty bad.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Yes, the problem here is that as fewer people are dining, there just isn't the revenue to raise wages. If you look at someone like a waiter, he is as busy as the number of customers and the amount they are ordering. If he is spending a lot of time standing around, well, then his wages are going to have to be cut. It could easily be cut to such a low level so that the waiter can't pay his bills and has to quit. So restaurants can be in the simultaneous situation of not being able to hire enough workers to handle some peak hours, but also not being able to pay those workers enough to work full time for them. And raising prices again results in fewer customers who can always eat at home or order delivery, which doesn't need the waiter. Restaurants, if they could just raise prices and earn more revenue, would do so. They charge as much as they can, assuming they are well run, to already maximize revenue, regardless of what they pay waiters. You have even a bigger problem with hotels. If the hotel doesn't have enough guests, it's going to have to either lay off the cleaning staff and hotel staff, or reduce their hours and pay. And again, that could mean that the hotel staff have to quit. Here, too, the hotel is already charging what the market will bear to maximize revenue. It's just a screwed up labor market when it comes to Hotels and Restaurants.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    One thing hotels are doing is essentially getting rid of cleaning during a stay for "COVID safety reasons." Now, I don't doubt that there is an element of that--and some chains have off and on been willing to trade cleaning for a few loyalty program points pre-COVID. In general, I'd observe that hotel pricing, while certainly not dirt-cheap, is at relatively "rational" levels in places where you were easily getting in the $300-400/night range pre-pandemic. (And that was for generally midrange business hotels.)
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      I've noticed that, too. My guess is that both restaurants and hotels plunged a lot right at the beginning, and now they've recovered about 2/3 of that and that recovery has now stalled. People are still trying to figure out what is sustainable and what isn't, in terms of staffing. We may not see this industry rebound to pre-covid employment levels ever. For instance, Uber delivery and other services may just be a thing and permanently shift labor away from waiters, and hotels may have permanently ceded market shares to AirBnBs or other lower service offerings. Maybe in the future, daily cleanings will be seen as some kind of odd luxury. But I think it's all up in the air right now.
dang 5y ago
Fixed now. Submitted title was "4.3M Americans quit their jobs in August". Submitters: please don't do that. If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

by rsj_hn 5y ago

ghaff 5y ago

>This does point out that the Hotel and Restaurant industry is still being hit hard. It's also the case that my observation while traveling to a number of different places the last couple of months is that a lot of restaurants are still having trouble getting staff. I got into one (crowded) restaurant just before it was closing at 3pm on a Sunday and it wasn't reopening until Thursday. A lot of mid-week closures in the city that didn't seem to be the result of weak demand. Now, could they just increase wages until they hire enough people? Possibly. But if it's not a coordinated effort, they'll probably lose out to a competitor and presumably higher prices have some effect on collective demand given that eating out is not a necessity in general. I ate at another restaurant in another city that had explicitly jacked up prices considerably--like maybe 40%. It was empty even though other restaurants in the area looked pretty busy. And service was still pretty bad.

rsj_hn 5y ago
Yes, the problem here is that as fewer people are dining, there just isn't the revenue to raise wages. If you look at someone like a waiter, he is as busy as the number of customers and the amount they are ordering. If he is spending a lot of time standing around, well, then his wages are going to have to be cut. It could easily be cut to such a low level so that the waiter can't pay his bills and has to quit. So restaurants can be in the simultaneous situation of not being able to hire enough workers to handle some peak hours, but also not being able to pay those workers enough to work full time for them. And raising prices again results in fewer customers who can always eat at home or order delivery, which doesn't need the waiter. Restaurants, if they could just raise prices and earn more revenue, would do so. They charge as much as they can, assuming they are well run, to already maximize revenue, regardless of what they pay waiters. You have even a bigger problem with hotels. If the hotel doesn't have enough guests, it's going to have to either lay off the cleaning staff and hotel staff, or reduce their hours and pay. And again, that could mean that the hotel staff have to quit. Here, too, the hotel is already charging what the market will bear to maximize revenue. It's just a screwed up labor market when it comes to Hotels and Restaurants.
- ghaff 5y ago
  One thing hotels are doing is essentially getting rid of cleaning during a stay for "COVID safety reasons." Now, I don't doubt that there is an element of that--and some chains have off and on been willing to trade cleaning for a few loyalty program points pre-COVID. In general, I'd observe that hotel pricing, while certainly not dirt-cheap, is at relatively "rational" levels in places where you were easily getting in the $300-400/night range pre-pandemic. (And that was for generally midrange business hotels.)
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    I've noticed that, too. My guess is that both restaurants and hotels plunged a lot right at the beginning, and now they've recovered about 2/3 of that and that recovery has now stalled. People are still trying to figure out what is sustainable and what isn't, in terms of staffing. We may not see this industry rebound to pre-covid employment levels ever. For instance, Uber delivery and other services may just be a thing and permanently shift labor away from waiters, and hotels may have permanently ceded market shares to AirBnBs or other lower service offerings. Maybe in the future, daily cleanings will be seen as some kind of odd luxury. But I think it's all up in the air right now.

dang 5y ago

Fixed now. Submitted title was "4.3M Americans quit their jobs in August". Submitters: please don't do that. If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...