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A Fast-Food Problem: Where Have All the Teenagers Gone?
The New York Times ^ | 03 May 2018 | RACHEL ABRAMS and ROBERT GEBELOFF

Posted on 05/06/2018 9:13:08 AM PDT by Theoria

A quarter-century ago, there were 56 teenagers in the labor force for every “limited service” restaurant — that is, the kind where you order at the counter.

Today, there are fewer than half as many, which is a reflection both of teenagers’ decreasing work force participation and of the explosive growth in restaurants.

But in an industry where cheap labor is an essential component in providing inexpensive food, a shortage of workers is changing the equation upon which fast-food places have long relied. This can be seen in rising wages, in a growth of incentives, and in the sometimes odd situations that business owners find themselves in.

This is why Jeffrey Kaplow, for example, spends a lot of time working behind the counter in his Subway restaurant in Lower Manhattan. It’s not what he pictured himself doing, but he simply doesn’t have enough employees.

Mr. Kaplow has tried everything he can think of to find workers, placing Craigslist ads, asking other franchisees for referrals, seeking to hire people from Subways that have closed.

Yet there he was during a recent lunchtime rush, ringing up veggie footlongs and fountain drinks. He feared that if the line grew too long, people might get frustrated and not come back.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: economy; fastfood; laborforce; teenagers
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To: Yaelle

Thank you. My teenagers all work and do very well. Even my 14 year old has two part time jobs. She manages it all around her school and dance classes. My younger kids can’t wait to be old enough to start earning money.


81 posted on 05/06/2018 11:24:26 AM PDT by NorthstarMom
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To: Theoria
They are essentially prohibited from working.

States have made laws so restrictive that hiring a person under 18 is more trouble then it is worth.

The school district has to issue a work permit. This permit will say when the minor will work and what work they can do. If they change jobs a new work permit is needed.

This permit can be pulled at the discretion of the school district.

This applies to all minors, public, private, home, drop out or graduated.

82 posted on 05/06/2018 11:25:32 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies!! Or maybe midgets....)
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To: WilliamCooper1

Oh, yeah? Well what have you been doing, and who did YOU vote for for the last 40 years?


83 posted on 05/06/2018 11:26:06 AM PDT by Flaming Conservative ((Pray without ceasing))
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To: Menehune56

It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Teenagers now associate such jobs with illegals, and think it beneath them. And their parents tend to agree.


84 posted on 05/06/2018 11:27:54 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: mewzilla
Greatest problem is the minimum wage. If employers have to pay through the nose for labor, less productive young’uns are not even in the running.

THAT'S A BINGO!!!!!!!!

Kids under 18 should be paid at a lower minimum wage.

85 posted on 05/06/2018 11:29:10 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: WilliamCooper1

Hey, great post. I thought it was illuminating in its construct and nature:

************************************************************

I love the intellectually lazy attacks on the Boomers.. It’s the typical “not my fault” attitude of the Millenials and Z. But the truth is, this is the fault of the Millenial and Z middle class giving this country away because they don’t have the intellectual capability to “take responsibility for their own actions” and “stand up for what is right instead of going along with all the sheep on the left.”

For decades you Millenials and Z have been fooled by Leftist politicians that serve international mega corporations. You voted for open borders to serve their interest like clockwork. As long as the candidate talked about the ‘fairness” “hate speech” and “evil corporations’ you faithfully went to the polls like good little sheep.

You never took time to look at the crippling damage the embrace of abortion, rejection of religion, desecration of marriage, acceptance of sexually deviant behavior, and abdication of free speech was doing on this country. You never had to deal with the dangerous situations in our inner city public schools because your parents could afford to send to to private schools, and to their public schools of choice, five days a week, readily absorbing the Leftist rhetoric from your grade school, high school, and college professors and parroting it to your parents and the world via social media. You never took time to look at it because you were living a comfortable middle class life in the suburbs. You could go to nice schools. You just kept voting Democrat and voting for Leftists like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and a host of other leftist politicians who vowed to cripple American industry with crushing legislation, and willingly allow open borders to facilitate third world invaders by the millions.

Now, post 2016, you haven’t grasped what your willing complicity with these things has done. Those dangerous third world illegal immigrants that you have advocated for allowing in (because it is unfair to keep them out) and hardcore gangsters from the ghetto (that you think are being persecuted by law enforcement, which you express by your support for Black Lives Matter) find their way into your what was nice middle class neighborhoods. Your children are having to sit in class with them and are now subject to their vices. Some of you have are actually producing children with these people. So now, you are finally concerned.

But instead of being men instead of generally the milky pussies you are and for your now complete indoctrination that anyone who disagrees with your Leftist pap are racists or xenophobic, you point the finger at your parents and grandparents. You point the finger at everyone but yourselves so you can continue to take selfies, update your stupid and narcissistic facebook and take out loans for hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans with no intention of paying them back and blaming it all on evil bankers who forced you to sign an unfair contract because you don’t have two brain cells in your head to rub together in order to evaluate a contract. You have no intention to save anything at all no matter what, planning on someone like Bernie Sanders to step in and provide fairly for you. Instead of saving, you are more concerned with petit bourgeois purchases like, iPhones, selfie sticks to take on tacky vacations to Hawaii, and trips to Europe—all financed by the your parents or what should have been your own future savings, of course. You too find a way to blame this on your parents and evil corporations, but never yourselves.

As a Boomer, I look forward to the white Millenial and Z middle class feeling some pain. It’s time you guys enjoy the decades of your support for open borders, government control of industry, and the destruction of freedom of speech that Millennials and Z are all in favor of. It’s time you pay for rejecting hard work and national sovereignty. It’s time for those poor “undocumented immigrants” you took sympathy on all of these years to finally move into your neighborhoods so you can enjoy the “diversity.” When the crushing tyranny of a government that you have willingly enabled in your pathetic rebellion against your own personal responsibility brings the hammer down on you, you will finally understand there is no such thing as “fairness” when the government is involved.

Next time you drive through a fast food restaurant and you see a machine taking orders and a robot working the grill, give yourself a big pat on the back. You did it. You wrecked the country because you were too greedy, too lazy, and too selfish to take a stand.

************************************************************

This of course, it is not directed at YOU WilliamCooper1, because I know your post was just rhetoric to make a point, so I certainly don’t expect you to take exception to it.

Same here.


86 posted on 05/06/2018 11:31:19 AM PDT by rlmorel (Leftists: They believe in the "Invisible Hand" only when it is guided by government.)
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To: RushIsMyTeddyBear
My younger kid has had a lawn biz since he was 10. Both my kids also paid for their own cars.

I had four yards I cut when I was growing up. I loved to build model ships. One yard would pay for one ship.

Come to think of it a grass cutting business today wouldn't be to bad!

87 posted on 05/06/2018 11:39:01 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: elpadre
I had substantial jobs every summer of my teen years.

Started work by mowing yards in 6th grade. Moved on to janitorial type jobs, cashier, fast food, farm, and now professional type work.

88 posted on 05/06/2018 11:40:49 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: Mears

He wrote: “No, it was before you and your Boomer idiot cohorts ...”

It was aimed at me which tells me much about Billy Cooper.


89 posted on 05/06/2018 11:44:49 AM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said theoal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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To: Theoria

In my area, FF has been overtaken by spanish speaking individuals.

My daughter has a friend who works at Jack in the Box.

She hates her job because everyone else only speaks spanish so it’s hard to know what todo and keep up.

My son applied all over town and was told he had to be over 18 for most jobs.

He applied at Pizza Hut and was told he was unqualified to make pizza.

He can probably cook circles around any of the pizza slingers at that place.

He finally got hired at 18 at a local business and worked there about a year before being hired at a petroleum infrastructure outfit, again the job was acquired through someone he knew in high school-an instructor.

People shouldn’t have to learn a foreign language in their own country in order to get a job at a burger joint.

America should be English ONLY.


90 posted on 05/06/2018 11:49:09 AM PDT by Califreak (Take Me Back To Constantinople)
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To: ealgeone

Every able bodied boy in my age range did much the same during our youth.

In my neighborhood today there is not one kid out hustling a lawn to cut. - sad


91 posted on 05/06/2018 11:50:03 AM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said theoal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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To: Menehune56

“Translation: illegal aliens. Otherwise ICE woudn’t bother them.”

Thanks, that put me in stitches too! The last time that I checked, no one cares where your born, if you can show either a blue passport or a green card.


92 posted on 05/06/2018 11:53:57 AM PDT by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's...I just don't tell anyone)
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To: elpadre

‘It was aimed at me which tells me much about Billy Cooper.”

Ahha! I’m in my 80s also,and frankly I’m getting a kick out of the Boomer knocking because they were the ONLY GENERATION THAT MATTERED for quite a few years.

I’m not necessarily agreeing with the posts,I just find it all amusing.

.


93 posted on 05/06/2018 11:54:16 AM PDT by Mears
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To: dfwgator

“Teenagers now associate such jobs with illegals, and think it beneath them.”

One critical factor in many restaurants is that Spanish is required.


94 posted on 05/06/2018 11:54:44 AM PDT by CodeToad (The Democrats haven't been this pissed off since the Republicans took their slaves away.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Yes it’s true.

Employers and school district tell the kids they need a permit to get a job, then they say the kid has to have a job to obtain a permit.

It’s an evil catch-22.


95 posted on 05/06/2018 11:56:56 AM PDT by Califreak (Take Me Back To Constantinople)
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To: WilliamCooper1

You have no f’ing idea what you’re talking about. I’m a Boomer, born in 1946, the official beginning year of the generation. I had a job of some kind every summer from the time I was ten. At one time, I had both a morning AND an afternoon newspaper route. Several summers I did field work. One summer I worked as a deckhand on an 85’ boat.

I worked all summer before my senior year undercoating new cars. Gruesome job but I was working. I could go on, I joined the Army when I was nineteen and went to Vietnam.

One of the biggest problems has been government interference. Labor laws make it nearly impossible for anyone under sixteen to work. I think it’s because immigrants (legal or not) get the jobs and our kids get the short end.

Both of my sons worked through high school. One in a seniors’ home at 16. The other worked at a tire dealer. Both are in their 30s now and doing well. My oldest grandchild is also working.

I could probably excuse your opinions on Boomers as you were not around in those years to know how we really were but calling Ronald Reagan a RINO is pure heresy. For that, you get the “Bone Stupid” award.


96 posted on 05/06/2018 12:00:48 PM PDT by beelzepug (The permanent political class that runs this country is...the great(est) danger we face)
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To: wardaddy

Milo’s! I’m going to Freepmail you something you won’t believe.


97 posted on 05/06/2018 12:03:28 PM PDT by Bodleian_Girl
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To: stuck_in_new_orleans

“They’ve been replaced by people who often look like they’ve just been released from prison. Ugly tattoos on their arms and hands and even uglier demeanors”

My wife and I recently went to a Golden Correl, here in Houston. The people working there, TO A PERSON, were clearly ex-cons, of all races and gender identities. You can tell it simply in their voices.

Also reminds me of what happened during the 1980s, when I made an airline reservation by phone (not sure which one, maybe TWA). I remember the guy saying something like “yea, cool, aw-right, these are your flights...” and thinking, ‘well, that’s weird’. A few months later they were raided for stealing credit card numbers - seems that they were felons and the airline was routing calls to them in their PRISON. How did they expect it to end?


98 posted on 05/06/2018 12:04:36 PM PDT by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's...I just don't tell anyone)
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To: rlmorel

I see young people turn down good opportunities so they can stay home with mom and live off students loans postponing maturing into adulthood. The mom knows there is a price for this down the road and makes comments that she’ll never be able to retire knowing her kid will not pay the loans back, that it will fall to her and is fine with this behavior.


99 posted on 05/06/2018 12:06:34 PM PDT by Aquamarine (Where we go one, we go ALL ~ Q)
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To: bgill

“The other day we were out of town so stopped in at Whataburger. It took 25 minutes to get the order out. We were second in line. Worst burger EVER. Never again.”

Which is why In-and-Out is CLEANING THEIR CLOCK, at least where they have restaurants.


100 posted on 05/06/2018 12:07:26 PM PDT by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's...I just don't tell anyone)
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