I think this: > Maybe the issue is just that hotels don't want to pay enough. doesn't get at the point of this: >> Its not a shortage of workers, it's a sho

I think this: > Maybe the issue is just that hotels don't want to pay enough. doesn't get at the point of this: >> Its not a shortage of workers, it's a shortage of underpayable workers. For centuries, rich people have had servants. Somehow, there have always been enough people in bad enough situations that taking grueling and poorly paid servant jobs has been their best option. Somehow! In the US, for a long time we "solved" that problem by having a social hierarchy of race. Legally backed in many places first by slavery and later by Jim Crow, or just socially backed through perfectly legal discrimination. That finally changed for the better with the civil rights acts of the 1960s plus 50 years of hard work eroding the discrimination. So yay, partial victory, good for us. That changed the targets, but it didn't change the structures that create people who expect to have servants and a much larger number of people who are desperate enough that they have to be servants, putting up with the often-terrible working conditions.