I have commented before on the conveniently located Wendy’s/Tim’s combo that closed it’s dining room when school started in September. Had not even tried them in a few weeks, but went by a few days ago. Previously, there was no outward sign the dining room was closed, just a locked door. Now, they have an easel out front with a large, printed, sign on it “dining room closed”, so looks like they expect that situation to remain for a good long time.
A couple Arby’s have been pretty reliable about having their dining room open. I stopped in one that was on the way to where I was headed after lunch. Turned in, and only saw two employee cars, no customer cars parked, or at the drive-up, at 11:45. I didn’t even shut the engine off as I nosed my car into a parking spot and checked the sign on the door “dining room closed”. And it was not a hastily scribbled sign because someone didn’t show up for work today. It was neatly printed on a desktop printer, so they knew they were going to be short of staff ahead of time.
Headed over to the Mickey D’s across the street. Dining room open. Both dining room and drive up doing a brisk business. Sign on the store offering $16/hr.
So, let’s assume that $16 is the magic number in your neck of the woods for the low tier of the totem pole work-wise. Do Arby’s and Tim have enough flexibility from the mother ship to raise menu prices enough to pay that - and will customers be willing to pay the higher prices? And if they don’t and are forced to give up fast food, does that mean they’ll starve?
My parents and I went to my dad’s favorite Indian place last night. The portions are smaller and the coupons are no longer extended to the public. Inflation in the kitchen.
The restaurants are scare of raising the prices much more.
The better American staff in other restaurants left the industry earlier this year.
Well, the large Big Mac meal cost less than my favorite noshes at Wendy’s or Tim’s. The Arby’s on Ford Rd, not the one that was closed last Sunday, still has the sign offering $14/hr.
One Mickey D’s tradition went by the wayside over this past year. They used to offer any size pop for $1, for years. Now, it’s $1.29 for a big one.
From what I’ve seen in various financial articles, employees are simply not returning to pre-covid employment levels and there isn’t any sign they will.
Certainly leads me to wonder where they went. Sure some were retirement eligible or didn’t need employment but on the low end of the pay scale people live pay check to pay check and can’t afford to go w/o pay.
More importantly to me, is what does that mean for the economy in terms of the stock market, interest rates and inflation.
I keep hearing from some places like restaurants that they are short staffed and instead of being open 7 days a week they are closing on slower days like Mondays/Tuesdays. Yet I know from friends who have children looking for employment the job market is not so easy. One guy with an IT degree ended up taking employment with a big name financial company who will be retraining him into the financial world and not really using his tech degree.
I’m thinking the millions of people 62+ that decided to retire created openings for younger people to move up, creating the vacuum at the bottom of the labor market.