Posted on 10/25/2021 2:51:39 AM PDT by EBH
Laughing Pets, a pet-sitting and dog-walking company in Atlanta, Georgia, turned down a holiday job worth around $2,500 because it couldn't find enough staff.
"We get, on average, four new inquiries per day and we have to turn all of them away," its owner Karen Levy told Insider.
She said that she used to hire 12 members of staff, which has fallen to just five. As well as turning away prospective customers, she'd had to suspend some visits to long-term clients, too.
"I may never get those clients back," Levy said, adding that she was even grateful for cancellations because it meant her remaining staff wouldn't get burned out.
Levy isn't alone. Other businesses small across the US have also resorted to dramatically slashing their opening hours or cutting back on their services – both because they can't find enough staff to operate as usual and because labor is getting more expensive. Nearly a quarter of small and medium-sized businesses said in a poll by Alignable they'd reduced operating hours to cut payroll expenses.
At Maid to Sparkle, a residential cleaning service in Richmond, Virginia, the workforce has fallen by roughly half, according to owner Jonathan Bergstein.
As a result, the company is cleaning between 15 and 20 houses a day, down from 30 pre-pandemic, he said.
He said that he had to turn down business and reschedule loyal customers, who he feared he could lose to a competitor.
Before the pandemic, Maid to Sparkle made around $750,000 a year in gross profit, Bergstein said.
"Now we'll be lucky if we gross maybe $300,000," he said.
Debra Marsteller is the CEO of Project Independence, a medium-sized nonprofit in California that works with adults with developmental disabilities. She said that the organization had lost around 30% of its staff.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
On the other hand, heavy DNC mega-doners like Amazon and Walmart and doing just fine.
Imagine that. Almost like it was intended...
I knew wages weren’t the only reason people aren’t going back to their jobs because wages have been going up around here. Starting pay for burger flippers is $12-$15! I saw a sign at a Burger King offering a $1,500 sign on bonus!
I think many more families will revert to the traditional family model as the ones who have made the jump tell their friends and families how much happier they are. Step out of the rat race buddy and enjoy your family!
On the other end of things wages are rising. Good employers are taking care of their employees.
One of my sons got a $2.00/hr raise over three months to make his pay match the local economy. He wasn’t due a raise by company schedule but the company studied the local wage/cost of living numbers and raised the pay of every employee, even new hires. He operates a laser cutter at a conveyor builder.
He’s making $27/hour now.
My daughter, a pharmacy tech, changed jobs because she could make more, and be treated better, than she could at the hospital she worked at.
She went to work for a group of independent doctors who aren’t affiliated with the local hospital owned by Centra Health. These doctors are top shelf, head of the class doctors. If she has to work a weekend the doctors feed the entire staff. Sometimes its pizza, sometimes burgers or tacos/burritos, whatever and its an all you can eat affair!
Two months ago the outfit reached goals they had set for the year. Patients treated, new patients seen and other goals. They had one of the best BBQ places around set up in their back parking lot and fed the staff through two shifts, with take home containers allowed.
The reality for dog walking is it has seen significant increase in demand. Why?
People adopted pets during the shutdown. Particularly dogs. 23 million American households acquired a pet during the COVID-19 crisis and most will not consider rehoming their pet.
Even if they are working from home...they are working and still cannot take the dog out for a walk. And many of these dogs need to be afternoon tired, so their owners can ...work without interruptions.
Here’s one report. Says originally down 90%, then picked back up to about prepandemic by May:
Correct, good job. Yes, the pet industry generally handles economic changes pretty well. Right now though...
...across the board dog walking companies are turning away business because they cannot find employees.
Correct again. Too bad so many others on this post cannot see the forest for the trees in front of them.
Guess you don’t think $24-$30 per hour to walks dogs is sufficient pay...? But then I bet you don’t know a thing about the dog walking biz.
I keep in contact with my friends /family back in New York. They say the veterinary clinics have gotten hit pretty hard with staffing and an influx of new animals:
1) Older DVMs retired during COVID-19;
2) People who got pets have been scheduling appointments to see these new animals;
3) Staff such as LVTs, front office, etc did not return for a variety of reasons this year
I was told it is 4-6 WEEKS to see a cat at many clinics in the WNY/CNY area. A couple of the emergency hospitals have had to decline new admits due to inadequate staffing for several days this year. If you have a cat or dog that is in extremis, you have a problem.
So I am taking two cats from a cousin this weekend, another cat is going to a niece, and my cousin is also sending two cats to Ontario, Canada to good friends who offered to take in two cats. These are cats that are older with not overly serious medical issues, but for which prompt treatment would be important.
I said to try and find a DVM who has a concierge service and makes house calls. You pay a retainer and some more for the care, but it would be timely. I believe it could be a money maker for an enterprising group of DVMs.
Your daughter is working for a good company - they are doing it right.
Situation is the same here in Cleveland. Vet appointments are 6-8 weeks out.
Re: 50 - I think that’s unwarranted.
Guess what - people who make $15 can be lazy just as people making $25/hour can be lazy.
Some people are forgetting that employees have to show up on time, stay off their phones, work and not “walk the halls”. During our new employee probationary period, if you blow off a work day, you’re fired. Late two times without a call beforehand, you’re fired. Using work computers for porn or gambling, you’re fired no matter how long you’ve been there.
If you’re making $50,000 - $60,000 starting as a desktop technican, you need to be squared away or you will be gone.
My cousin has 10 cats so she has her appointments stacked for multiple cats. A crazy way to do it, but really the only way.
Oh I understand what is happening very clearly. It is those who keep saying “pay more.” That are causing a contraction in the economy yet to be fully realized.
Businesses shutting down due to lack of staffing
Wage demands inconsistent with the skill levels
Retailers cutting hours of operation heading into peak holiday season
Yeah...there’s nothing to see here other than low pay? Keep it up and there won’t be any jobs and 20% interest rates. Nobody is paying attention to history.
1970s
From November 1973, the economy contracted until March 1975, but it was relatively mild. The economy shrank by 0.5% in 1974 and by 0.2% in 1975.
President Richard Nixon fought back hard. He authorized wage-price controls, which kept prices and salaries too high. Consumers cut back on demand. Businesses laid off workers. Second, Nixon removed the United States dollar from the gold standard, which created inflation. The price of gold skyrocketed to $120 per ounce, and the dollar’s value plummeted. His destructive policies created stagflation and three consecutive quarters of contraction
1980s
The 1980 recession was the third-worst economic contraction in U.S. history. It was tough to beat, because there was also double-digit inflation. A contraction with inflation is called “stagflation.” That was due to President Nixon’s economic policies. The Fed raised interest rates to 20% to combat inflation. That hammered business spending and created the contraction.
It began in January 1980. It seemed like it was over in six months. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan took office. The Fed began lowering interest rates since inflation was at normal levels. But the contraction returned in July 1981 and lasted until November 1982. The economy contracted for six of the 12 quarters. That sent GDP down 0.3% in 1980 and 1.8% in 1982.
Unemployment increased to a record 10.8% in November 1982. It stayed above 10% for 10 months.
Reagan lowered the top income tax rate from 70% to 28%. He also reduced the corporate tax rate from 48% to 34%. Although he promised to reduce government spending, he doubled spending instead. His expansionary fiscal policies ended the recession.
Reagan got the contraction to end and the Democrats think their plan can avoid it too. Except...they plan to raise taxes which shouldn’t be done. They keep heading down this path and it will throw everything into a spiral. People demanding undeserved high wages is like Nixon’s wage-price control policy.
Yeah, we are so far in over our heads, basic economics means nothing. You need to up your level a bit and step back from the wages argument to see the bigger picture unfolding in front of us.
So lets talk this all the way through. A small business shuts down because the owner of said business refuses to pay wages high enough to get employees. So what happens next? Does the owner get a real job?
the focus is on the labor shortage and wages, yet everyone I know has raised wages and yet the problem persists = raise them even more.
Which goes back to our original discussion on small employers not wanting to increase wages so their employees can keep up with inflation. Where I have seen dog walking jobs advertised, which is NYC, they certainly appear to be very low-paying jobs. That is presumably because they had a steady enough supply of students or whomever willing to make the tradeoff to hang out with dogs for the day.
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