Posted on 10/12/2021 10:12:50 AM PDT by george76
More than half the wage earners currently working in the hospitality business are planning to quit by Jan. 1, according to new research..
Restaurants struggling to hold onto their employees are about to hit by a major setback, according to new research.
A survey of 13,659 wage earners by the online job marketplace Joblist revealed that 58% of restaurant and hotel employees intend to quit their jobs by the end of the year, stoking what the researchers have dubbed The Great Resignation.
If the pattern set by earlier quitters persists, a fourth of the workers will leave the hospitality industry for good.
The employees who intend to bail are in addition to the 16% of industry respondents who indicated they’re already no longer working.
The overall driver is the individuals’ dwindling satisfaction with their positions, the study found. The proportion of workers turned off by their hospitality jobs has doubled during the pandemic to a third of the labor force, compared with the 15% who said they were dissatisfied before the coronavirus crisis.
The percentage who said they’re satisfied with their positions dropped to 42%, from a pre-pandemic benchmark of 64%.
“Such extreme levels of employee dissatisfaction will likely lead to a wave of resignations in the near future,” the Joblist study states. “This is a strong signal that the labor shortage affecting the hospitality industry might get worse before it gets better, as increased turnover exacerbates an already difficult hiring environment for employers.”
Among the 25% of former hospitality workers who said they’re done with restaurants, bars and hotels, the leading source of their dissatisfaction was low pay (cited by 56%). The other most frequent triggers for departures were a desire for a new career (50%), a lack of benefits (39%), difficult customers (38%), long hours and rigid schedules (34%) and potential exposure to coronavirus (23%).
The exodus is also being fueled by a desire for more education. Eleven percent of the respondents said they’ve already gone back to school or enrolled in a training program as a prelude to a new career, and more than a quarter said they’re thinking of pursuing that route.
Some good news..
The findings suggested that employers are far from helpless. Across all fields of employment, about a third of job hunters said they would reconsider quitting their current positions if the employer addressed just some sources of their dissatisfaction.
In addition, Joblist said that all employers should benefit from the reopening of schools for in-classroom learning. About 40% of the respondents said their work lives were impacted by the need to participate in their children’s remote learning.
That is what these type of jobs are for, they were never whole life career jobs. I myself, worked in restaurants for years before moving on to a real career in engineering.
We take so much for granted...being able to travel and eat out will be distant memories and luxuries that only happen on rare occasions
Could it be that a lot of two income households became one income households, and decided they liked that better? Once you add up commuting, child care, clothing, and other work related costs, a low paying McJob becomes a lot less “worth it”.
Isn't this what the government wants though? A majority of the populace on the dole and made to be very controllable?
Sounds funny, but to really “give it to the man” these days, you don't drop out and tune in, you stay and tune out!!
My local ‘home-style’ restaurant is already operating at reduced days open due to lack of employees.
Good point. I expect that’s a non-negligible factor.
Most of the local restaurants are crying out for workers. The sit-down restaurants are limiting days and hours they are open—they just don’t have the staff—cooks and waiters to accommodate guests. Fast-food places all seem to have help wanted signs posted.
My *very* small sample, 3 of 4 friends who work in foodservice or retail want out and have been upping their skills and networking accordingly.
Whatever one’s opinion on the enhanced unemployment payments, pretty much everyone I know in a crap job used the ‘time off’ (still didn’t pay as well as going to work) to gain skills or get ready to start a business.
Does not bode well for any of the food joints around here, from greasy spoon to two star.
I read an article that said that 60% of New York City restaurants in September could not pay the rent. I don’t think these employees have to quit, I think restaurants are being put out of business by government.
Waiting tables is a shiitey job.
Most Patrons treat you like crap.
The Boss treats you like crap.
Working conditions suck.
And unless you’re in the “Hot New Place”, or a well established local “destination”, chances are you make just enough to pay for gas and aspirin.
On other hand, as a young-un, working in restaurants and bars at night made lots of other things possible for lots of people.
Seems that the only people you are harming by quitting a good job is yourself, I don’t see the point in putting your family in harms way by not bringing home a paycheck. Nuts on both sides.
What will they do? They all can’t be elected to Congress.
“My local ‘home-style’ restaurant is already operating at reduced days open due to lack of employees.”
One of our college aged grand kids stopped to visit the grandparents this weekend.
Their favorite take out is from a drive in their Dad and Uncles loved and still love.
Sorry, they were closed due to lack of staffing. They are only open from 11 am to 8 pm.
So we ordered take out from the GK’s fav Mexican food restaurant.
There was no parking in the lot and I parked about a block away. Our GrandK went over to pick up the order which was 15 minutes late. They had sold over 100 takeouts besides the jammed restaurant and outside tables.
The young lady handing out the take out orders had not had a break since 4 pm, and we were approaching 8 pm.
Not misleading based on what my firm has seen in the last few months...turnover rate has really accelerated in recent months and wages are going through the roof. We’re in 44 states across nearly 700 locations with ~8k employees.
This is classic Carter era stuff.
Once inflation kicks in there is an urgency to find a job that pays more.
Where there are unions that means strikes.
In low paying jobs that means lots of folks try to figure out a way to improve their careers.
Meanwhile consumers “trade down” their spending to try to keep up with the inflation. That means less or less fancy vacations, less or less fancy restaurants, grocery buying, clothes buying etc.
As a result the employers cannot afford to pay the higher wages.
How soon everyone forgets...
There are always ways to cut expenses, especially for young people.
Move back home with the parents, double up on apartments, move to areas with lower cost of living etc.
“On other hand, as a young-un, working in restaurants and bars at night made lots of other things possible for lots of people.”
One of our gene pools attended a good culinary academy and worked in supposedly top restaurants for 15 years.
He finally left to have a life with regular hours.
15+ years later, he and his doctor said getting out of that business saved his life in many ways.
Who would want to work in a restaurant now with how rude and uncivilized customers are? There are some people who seem to think they can attack a retail worker if they are unhappy with something, and we know who most of these entitled people are.
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