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Considering that most of the growth was in leisure/hospitality, I interpret this move as the official "end" of the lockdown era. We have achieved full reopening

by zelias 4y ago

Considering that most of the growth was in leisure/hospitality, I interpret this move as the official "end" of the lockdown era. We have achieved full reopening/replacement of the bars, restaurants, and hotels that shut down during COVID, who proceeded to hire back all their low wage service workers. This explains the explosion in job growth with a stagnant avg hourly earnings rate - the new jobs are mostly low wage jobs! This might be what the fabled "soft landing" looks like.

n8cpdx 4y ago
Anecdotally, there has been a striking increase in the amount of new service workers in training at restaurants and coffee shops in Portland. There was a very acute sense of labor shortage for the last few years, and that has gone. I’m hoping that we might see coffee shops (other than Dutch Bros) open past 3 PM someday. Enough operators to keep the buses, trains, ambulances, and 911 call center working are probably higher priority though; those orgs have started reporting better hiring results recently as well.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >Anecdotally, there has been a striking increase in the amount of new service workers in training at restaurants and coffee shops in Portland. Continuing on that anecdote, I've read two reviews of restaurants in the Portland metro area in the past week where the customer left a negative review because they were being served by a new, untrained server (each time, the restaurant responded that their experienced server was sick that day). There's definitely a bump in hiring happening.
- hedora 4y ago
  Also anecdotally: We went to $CASUAL_DINING_MEGACHAIN recently. The food was much better than I remembered, but they were so understaffed the greeter was also working the kitchen. It took 20 minutes to be seated (due to the greeter stand being unmanned; there were plenty of tables), and about 2 hours to eat and pay. I suspect people are still being very picky about where they work.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I can 100% confirm this - every hotel is incredibly understaffed in all the "working-class" departments; places that used to have an entire overnight banquets crew to set for the next morning are down to one guy and a dog, and the dog never shows up.
ashwagary 4y ago
I have a feeling a revision to the downside is in the near future. Jobs number games get played during interest rate raise periods.
- xnx 4y ago
  Games get played by whom and for what purpose?

by zelias 4y ago

n8cpdx 4y ago

Anecdotally, there has been a striking increase in the amount of new service workers in training at restaurants and coffee shops in Portland. There was a very acute sense of labor shortage for the last few years, and that has gone. I’m hoping that we might see coffee shops (other than Dutch Bros) open past 3 PM someday. Enough operators to keep the buses, trains, ambulances, and 911 call center working are probably higher priority though; those orgs have started reporting better hiring results recently as well.

jjulius 4y ago
>Anecdotally, there has been a striking increase in the amount of new service workers in training at restaurants and coffee shops in Portland. Continuing on that anecdote, I've read two reviews of restaurants in the Portland metro area in the past week where the customer left a negative review because they were being served by a new, untrained server (each time, the restaurant responded that their experienced server was sick that day). There's definitely a bump in hiring happening.
hedora 4y ago
Also anecdotally: We went to $CASUAL_DINING_MEGACHAIN recently. The food was much better than I remembered, but they were so understaffed the greeter was also working the kitchen. It took 20 minutes to be seated (due to the greeter stand being unmanned; there were plenty of tables), and about 2 hours to eat and pay. I suspect people are still being very picky about where they work.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I can 100% confirm this - every hotel is incredibly understaffed in all the "working-class" departments; places that used to have an entire overnight banquets crew to set for the next morning are down to one guy and a dog, and the dog never shows up.

ashwagary 4y ago

I have a feeling a revision to the downside is in the near future. Jobs number games get played during interest rate raise periods.

xnx 4y ago
Games get played by whom and for what purpose?