Workforce shortage raises questions for Marin businesses
Marin’s restaurants and service industries are struggling to return to pre-pandemic normal due to a lack of staff. They’re encountering an inability to hire sufficient employees essential for them to serve dramatically increasing demand.
For diners this implies longer wait times, more limited menu options and slower service. For proprietors it means they can’t fully recoup revenue lost during the COVID-19 epidemic.
The cause behind this lack of labor supply is disputed. Business owners presume it’s largely due to federal and state supplemental unemployment benefits that, in some cases, exceed what employees were paid before being furloughed. Their logic is, “Why would anyone go back to work if they earned as much or more by staying at home?”
Employment statistics in red states that have already terminated enhanced unemployment benefits tend to show that government supplemental aid was only one factor deterring employees from returning to the service sector.
Marin will soon learn whether the labor shortage will end or if service industry pre-pandemic pay is no longer viable. In California, CARES Act federal unemployment benefits ended on Sept. 4. For many employees — plus gig workers, independent contractors and the selfemployed — that spelled the end of pandemic-related government aid.
If employees flood back, it will be clear the supplemental benefits should have ended earlier as they were an employment deterrent.
If workers don’t return in droves then perhaps servers, cooks, dishwashers, childcare providers, laundry workers and building cleaners who were in jobs with low wages and no benefits found better paying jobs in other sectors with greater opportunity for advancement.
Good for them. Over the centuries global epidemics have resulted in major changes in the way people live, often for the better. They resulted in improved sanitation, safe food handling, clean water and science-based hospitalization. Decreased population due to virus-related deaths also changed much of the world’s economics, often producing localized hardships.
It may be that the only method to recruit sufficient staff for businesses to meet their economic potential is to increase service workers’ pay and benefits. In much of the western world these folks are paid a far higher wage, including sick pay and a decent vacation. Of course, overseas employers aren’t burdened with the expense of providing health insurance as those nations all have some form of universal health care.
The trade magazine Nation’s Restaurant News reports, “The five most important things restaurant workers look for in a new job: Starting hourly wage, promotion opportunities, flexible schedules, health benefits and paid time off policies and company culture/work environment.”
Egalitarian Australia’s “Were all in this together, mate” approach is a provocative alternative.
According to Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, the Aussies follow a 1907 legal decision providing “all employees must be paid a ‘living wage’” and
“if an employer was unable to pay a living wage; it was not entitled to operate a business.” They defined a living wage “as being sufficient to permit an unskilled worker, a dependent spouse and three dependent children to live in ‘frugal comfort.’” That’s pretty radical for the United States.
Treating employees “fairly” is a nebulous term. With our current labor shortage the cold-eyed free market may define “fair pay” as whatever is necessary to attract qualified employees.
It’s also fair and logical that if employers’ costs increase due to higher wages, they’ll need to proportionately raise their charges.
Marin is one of the wealthiest counties in America. If these relatively small changes mean we need to pay a bit more for a steak, enjoy a latte, have our cars washed or clothes pressed, then so be it.
Ideally we’ll accept it without complaining to managers or overworked servers, baristas or grocery store clerks — the same blue collar workers we regarded as “essential” during the pandemic.