4 ms·

Would love to see these numbers for Europe. Here is something I noticed in Germany: It is surprisingly hard to go out for lunch or a coffee and get good servi

by TekMol 2y ago

Would love to see these numbers for Europe. Here is something I noticed in Germany: It is surprisingly hard to go out for lunch or a coffee and get good service these days. In many restaurants and cafés where you have been served by friendly people who were interested in what they sell and happy to see customers, you are now served by people who are completely out of touch with what they do. Disinterested, and sometimes even outright grumpy towards customers.

PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
Is this Germany or San Francisco?
- barrenko 2y ago
  Anything that happens in San Francisco is eventually exported world wide, just like negligence on street crime, etc.
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    I assure you San Francisco is significantly less influential than you make it out to be here. Local trends in SF don't even propagate well to the East Coast of the US.
    - PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
      Or Los Angeles, what's left of it.
    - barrenko 2y ago
      I beg your pardon(s), respectfully I think you are all wrong.
      - forgetfreeman 2y ago
        Which makes none of us caring even funnier. To the extend that the east coast even thinks about San Francisco at all it's typically viewed as a roadmap of how to fuck up everything all the time.
  - jahnu 2y ago
    https://sfstandard.com/2025/01/07/san-francisco-crime-rate-fell-to-23-year-low-in-2024/ https://sfstandard.com/2025/01/07/san-francisco-crime-rate-f...
chvid 2y ago
I would guess "employee engagement" depends a lot on how you measure it and because of that likely is hard to compare across borders/culture. And also - wait until spring - then I am sure the Germans will be in a better mood.
- dave4420 2y ago
  If Germany is anything like Britain, I expect they will be in a worse mood come the autumn.
truckerbill 2y ago
People are struggling
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  Alternatively: we haven’t had a jobs recession (absent stimulus) in over a decade.
  - truckerbill 2y ago
    Are you saying: people aren't scared enough? Or poor enough?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > people aren't scared enough? Or poor enough? Neither. Labor markets are tight. That improves employees’ bargaining power. The time since our last jobs recession means more may choose to trade that leverage for free time versus savings. (I certainly have.)
      - truckerbill 2y ago
        I see the logic there, though I think there's more to it. Like quality of work, and reward structures for hard work. Carrots work much better than sticks, with much lower risk of social unrest. I think those on the broad right are also undervaluing the power of idle hands at this point in time: some small percentage curious people with free time are largely responsible for innovations in society that everyone benefits from, the rich most of all. We still need at this point, new ideas with which to feed into the training data of the coming AI labor decimators.
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        You're not wrong, but I believe we're still in the tightening phase. During the "Great Resignation," workers had lots of power because of labor shortages. Employers responded by firing and rehiring (Meta) to reset wages, offshoring, H1Bs, etc. It's also why, I believe, that employers are dragging out hiring as long as possible. They want to "redline" the org and see how far they can push to cram down labor costs and wages (throwing job reqs out over and over with lower and lower comp to trawl for the desperate) while also striving for as much profitability as possible in a high cost of capital environment (see Fed benchmark rate and cuts going to be pushed out much longer due to strength of economy). Employee bargaining power will be challenging for the next few years with the new admin being anti-worker (with regards to organizing and labor rights enforcement), but at the same time, we must consider structural demographics and the fact that ~11,200 Boomers retire per day (~4M/year). Because of the slow burn of this, the labor market is in a bit of a Mexican Standoff. How this resolves or concludes, I cannot predict. Services labor would tighten if immigration of all sorts was constrained, labor that requires firm authorization checks would tighten faster if some combination of Boomers leaving the labor force faster or workers 55+ aging out faster occured.
smatija 2y ago
In Slovenia also good service in (affordable) restaurants and cafés became scarce. Here at least it's easy to see why though: 20-30 years ago most of service staff went to catering vocational schools (and work as server was seen as reputable career), while today majority of serving work is done by part-time students (and work in service is seen as deadend job).
- PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
  My guess is that employers wanted cheaper part time staff?
  - smatija 2y ago
    Of course, and liberalization of student work let them get that. At the "small" cost of worsening a large part of job pool and custumer experience.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    My guess is that customers wanted cheaper food and drinks? It is well documented that operating cafes and restaurants is among the lowest probability avenues for becoming rich, and highest probability avenues for the business failing. This is most likely a consequence of demographics and excessive rent seeking. Labor prices go up, and people are only able or willing to pay so much for food service before deciding it is better to do it themselves.
    - TekMol 2y ago
      excessive rent seeking What is excessive rent seeking? Isn't rent based on supply and demand?
      - lotsofpulp 2y ago
        When spaces in urban areas stay empty for years on end, that is excessive rent seeking. When a person wanting to start a business chooses not to because there is a 90%+ chance all their efforts will result in most of the profit going to the landlord when the lease renewal comes up, that is excessive rent seeking (most visible as only franchise or chain restaurants opening). When young people in the bottom two income quintiles can see they will never be able to save enough (because of spending their money on rent and higher prices paid to businesses that are paying rents) to afford buying a place of their own, so they forgo pursuing goals of forming families, that is excessive rent seeking.
HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
Why is this surprising? Are there that many HNers out of touch with blue collar work?
- PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
  Surprisingly, in japan the don't give a shit attitude seems absent. Is it not blue collar work in Japan?
  - orwin 2y ago
    Check ILO numbers about worker productivity in Japan, I'd bet the feelings are the same, they're courteous enough not to show it.
    - PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
      [dead]
- coldtea 2y ago
  Rather they are in touch with the fact that the blue collar work described worked better a decade ago... Then again, the future also looked better a decade ago, inflation wasn't crushing us, and so on...
  - Propelloni 2y ago
    Well, that future is now, and it is better! People keep saying that things are on a downturn since forever, but the numbers don't support an actual impact on quality of life [1], at least in the EU. According to levels of consumption prosperity has been pretty stable over the last ten years [2]. Could we all be more prosperous? Sure, distribution of wealth has become unjust _and_ unfair and we need to do something about it, and we can do this democratically. The future does not look bleak if you live in one of the rich, western democracies that make up the EU members. Anybody who fearmongers and tells you that we are under siege, or in the crapper, or threatened by immigration or whatever is trying to sell you a narrative to further their own agenda, an agenda that will harm the blue collar workers. So stay vigilant. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quality_of_life_indicators_-_overall_experience_of_life https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
camillomiller 2y ago
1st. In Germany for 10 years, it's always been the case. Unfortunately that's somewhat cultural, especially in big cities. 2nd. Especially in big cities, the cost of living has skyrocketed and the quality of life with service salary has become really bad. If you're forced to work such job, there is no way you'll be happy doing it. I don't fully condone how rude service workers are sometimes, but I completely understand their disengagment. 3rd. Gig economy has completely effed up the service industry. It used to be that if you're a student, working in a cafe or a restaurant was the perfect go to side job you could afford while studying. Now that doesn't make any sense anymore, as working as a gig worker makes so much more sense. You still don't earn good money, but at least the sector is much better regulated now, and also you can decide how much you work, without having to deal with customers that much, nor having to bicker with small food establishment bosses with unrealistic expectations about service workers engagement.
- lnsru 2y ago
  This! Especially 2nd! Most of the normal jobs do not cover the cost of living in the cities. The salaries are not high enough for positions like clerks, kindergarten staff, teachers, medical staff, firefighters, cops, cashiers. You name it. And for a couple with good jobs and without kids taxes bite really hard, purchasing power is not the one expected from top earners. Add rising mandatory medical and retirement insurance costs. This is just not good.
  - mgh95 2y ago
    > And for a couple with good jobs and without kids taxes bite really hard, purchasing power is not the one expected from top earners. Add rising mandatory medical and retirement insurance costs. This is just not good. About this, as I try to hire employees, I absolutely hate our tax code. DCAP is painfully low (5k). I really wish we could find a way to allow employers to offer pretax benefits and directly provide childcare as a fringe benefit. But you're 100% right, mandatory take a maximum chunk and workers should have lower taxes.
- weinzierl 2y ago
  Regarding 3: What are examples of gig economy work in Germany? I always thought this was things like Uber that pretty much do not exist in Germany. Sorry for being so out of touch, but I am curious.
realusername 2y ago
Same in France, I can't blame them, bad and good employees are paid the exact same minimum wage so why would you bother? There's definitely a salary crisis, employers don't want to reward good employees anymore. Competitors are paying the exact same salary down to the cents, if it goes too badly, you'll be paid the same somewhere else anyways.
lnsru 2y ago
Here you go for Germany: https://www.manager-magazin.de/karriere/umfrage-nur-48-prozent-geben-ihr-bestes-auf-der-arbeit-a-31c1d244-1c25-40c6-a437-96919e741dce https://www.manager-magazin.de/karriere/umfrage-nur-48-proze... Do I give my best? No I don’t. I want to be well rested and healthy. However I do my hours without slacking and really work from home when I do home office. I have tons of crap from previous employees to clean up for years. Rudimentary stuff nobody cares of. Why should I overwork when nobody did this for decades before me in this chair.
lifestyleguru 2y ago
Friendly people serving you in the past in Germany were millenials from post-Communist countries. They're 40 years old now.
trilbyglens 2y ago
Here in Prague we just call that Czech Culture.
Propelloni 2y ago
Also located in Germany, Cologne area. I can't confirm this. Maybe it's a regional thing?

by TekMol 2y ago

PoppinFreshDo 2y ago

Is this Germany or San Francisco?

barrenko 2y ago
Anything that happens in San Francisco is eventually exported world wide, just like negligence on street crime, etc.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  I assure you San Francisco is significantly less influential than you make it out to be here. Local trends in SF don't even propagate well to the East Coast of the US.
  - PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
    Or Los Angeles, what's left of it.
  - barrenko 2y ago
    I beg your pardon(s), respectfully I think you are all wrong.
    - forgetfreeman 2y ago
      Which makes none of us caring even funnier. To the extend that the east coast even thinks about San Francisco at all it's typically viewed as a roadmap of how to fuck up everything all the time.
- jahnu 2y ago
  https://sfstandard.com/2025/01/07/san-francisco-crime-rate-fell-to-23-year-low-in-2024/ https://sfstandard.com/2025/01/07/san-francisco-crime-rate-f...

chvid 2y ago

I would guess "employee engagement" depends a lot on how you measure it and because of that likely is hard to compare across borders/culture. And also - wait until spring - then I am sure the Germans will be in a better mood.

dave4420 2y ago
If Germany is anything like Britain, I expect they will be in a worse mood come the autumn.

truckerbill 2y ago

People are struggling

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Alternatively: we haven’t had a jobs recession (absent stimulus) in over a decade.
- truckerbill 2y ago
  Are you saying: people aren't scared enough? Or poor enough?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > people aren't scared enough? Or poor enough? Neither. Labor markets are tight. That improves employees’ bargaining power. The time since our last jobs recession means more may choose to trade that leverage for free time versus savings. (I certainly have.)
    - truckerbill 2y ago
      I see the logic there, though I think there's more to it. Like quality of work, and reward structures for hard work. Carrots work much better than sticks, with much lower risk of social unrest. I think those on the broad right are also undervaluing the power of idle hands at this point in time: some small percentage curious people with free time are largely responsible for innovations in society that everyone benefits from, the rich most of all. We still need at this point, new ideas with which to feed into the training data of the coming AI labor decimators.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      You're not wrong, but I believe we're still in the tightening phase. During the "Great Resignation," workers had lots of power because of labor shortages. Employers responded by firing and rehiring (Meta) to reset wages, offshoring, H1Bs, etc. It's also why, I believe, that employers are dragging out hiring as long as possible. They want to "redline" the org and see how far they can push to cram down labor costs and wages (throwing job reqs out over and over with lower and lower comp to trawl for the desperate) while also striving for as much profitability as possible in a high cost of capital environment (see Fed benchmark rate and cuts going to be pushed out much longer due to strength of economy). Employee bargaining power will be challenging for the next few years with the new admin being anti-worker (with regards to organizing and labor rights enforcement), but at the same time, we must consider structural demographics and the fact that ~11,200 Boomers retire per day (~4M/year). Because of the slow burn of this, the labor market is in a bit of a Mexican Standoff. How this resolves or concludes, I cannot predict. Services labor would tighten if immigration of all sorts was constrained, labor that requires firm authorization checks would tighten faster if some combination of Boomers leaving the labor force faster or workers 55+ aging out faster occured.

smatija 2y ago

In Slovenia also good service in (affordable) restaurants and cafés became scarce. Here at least it's easy to see why though: 20-30 years ago most of service staff went to catering vocational schools (and work as server was seen as reputable career), while today majority of serving work is done by part-time students (and work in service is seen as deadend job).

PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
My guess is that employers wanted cheaper part time staff?
- smatija 2y ago
  Of course, and liberalization of student work let them get that. At the "small" cost of worsening a large part of job pool and custumer experience.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  My guess is that customers wanted cheaper food and drinks? It is well documented that operating cafes and restaurants is among the lowest probability avenues for becoming rich, and highest probability avenues for the business failing. This is most likely a consequence of demographics and excessive rent seeking. Labor prices go up, and people are only able or willing to pay so much for food service before deciding it is better to do it themselves.
  - TekMol 2y ago
    excessive rent seeking What is excessive rent seeking? Isn't rent based on supply and demand?
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      When spaces in urban areas stay empty for years on end, that is excessive rent seeking. When a person wanting to start a business chooses not to because there is a 90%+ chance all their efforts will result in most of the profit going to the landlord when the lease renewal comes up, that is excessive rent seeking (most visible as only franchise or chain restaurants opening). When young people in the bottom two income quintiles can see they will never be able to save enough (because of spending their money on rent and higher prices paid to businesses that are paying rents) to afford buying a place of their own, so they forgo pursuing goals of forming families, that is excessive rent seeking.

HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago

Why is this surprising? Are there that many HNers out of touch with blue collar work?

PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
Surprisingly, in japan the don't give a shit attitude seems absent. Is it not blue collar work in Japan?
- orwin 2y ago
  Check ILO numbers about worker productivity in Japan, I'd bet the feelings are the same, they're courteous enough not to show it.
  - PoppinFreshDo 2y ago
    [dead]
coldtea 2y ago
Rather they are in touch with the fact that the blue collar work described worked better a decade ago... Then again, the future also looked better a decade ago, inflation wasn't crushing us, and so on...
- Propelloni 2y ago
  Well, that future is now, and it is better! People keep saying that things are on a downturn since forever, but the numbers don't support an actual impact on quality of life [1], at least in the EU. According to levels of consumption prosperity has been pretty stable over the last ten years [2]. Could we all be more prosperous? Sure, distribution of wealth has become unjust _and_ unfair and we need to do something about it, and we can do this democratically. The future does not look bleak if you live in one of the rich, western democracies that make up the EU members. Anybody who fearmongers and tells you that we are under siege, or in the crapper, or threatened by immigration or whatever is trying to sell you a narrative to further their own agenda, an agenda that will harm the blue collar workers. So stay vigilant. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quality_of_life_indicators_-_overall_experience_of_life https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

camillomiller 2y ago

1st. In Germany for 10 years, it's always been the case. Unfortunately that's somewhat cultural, especially in big cities. 2nd. Especially in big cities, the cost of living has skyrocketed and the quality of life with service salary has become really bad. If you're forced to work such job, there is no way you'll be happy doing it. I don't fully condone how rude service workers are sometimes, but I completely understand their disengagment. 3rd. Gig economy has completely effed up the service industry. It used to be that if you're a student, working in a cafe or a restaurant was the perfect go to side job you could afford while studying. Now that doesn't make any sense anymore, as working as a gig worker makes so much more sense. You still don't earn good money, but at least the sector is much better regulated now, and also you can decide how much you work, without having to deal with customers that much, nor having to bicker with small food establishment bosses with unrealistic expectations about service workers engagement.

lnsru 2y ago
This! Especially 2nd! Most of the normal jobs do not cover the cost of living in the cities. The salaries are not high enough for positions like clerks, kindergarten staff, teachers, medical staff, firefighters, cops, cashiers. You name it. And for a couple with good jobs and without kids taxes bite really hard, purchasing power is not the one expected from top earners. Add rising mandatory medical and retirement insurance costs. This is just not good.
- mgh95 2y ago
  > And for a couple with good jobs and without kids taxes bite really hard, purchasing power is not the one expected from top earners. Add rising mandatory medical and retirement insurance costs. This is just not good. About this, as I try to hire employees, I absolutely hate our tax code. DCAP is painfully low (5k). I really wish we could find a way to allow employers to offer pretax benefits and directly provide childcare as a fringe benefit. But you're 100% right, mandatory take a maximum chunk and workers should have lower taxes.
weinzierl 2y ago
Regarding 3: What are examples of gig economy work in Germany? I always thought this was things like Uber that pretty much do not exist in Germany. Sorry for being so out of touch, but I am curious.

realusername 2y ago

Same in France, I can't blame them, bad and good employees are paid the exact same minimum wage so why would you bother? There's definitely a salary crisis, employers don't want to reward good employees anymore. Competitors are paying the exact same salary down to the cents, if it goes too badly, you'll be paid the same somewhere else anyways.

lnsru 2y ago

Here you go for Germany: https://www.manager-magazin.de/karriere/umfrage-nur-48-prozent-geben-ihr-bestes-auf-der-arbeit-a-31c1d244-1c25-40c6-a437-96919e741dce https://www.manager-magazin.de/karriere/umfrage-nur-48-proze... Do I give my best? No I don’t. I want to be well rested and healthy. However I do my hours without slacking and really work from home when I do home office. I have tons of crap from previous employees to clean up for years. Rudimentary stuff nobody cares of. Why should I overwork when nobody did this for decades before me in this chair.

lifestyleguru 2y ago

Friendly people serving you in the past in Germany were millenials from post-Communist countries. They're 40 years old now.

trilbyglens 2y ago

Here in Prague we just call that Czech Culture.

Propelloni 2y ago

Also located in Germany, Cologne area. I can't confirm this. Maybe it's a regional thing?