Restaurants May Have A Hard Time Filling Positions For Some Time

It's interesting to me the number of restaurants, fast food, and otherwise who are grumbling that people would rather collect unemployment than work.

The idea that someone is just kicking back on unemployment instead of returning to work is pretty dang simplistic and surely not widespread. Have you seen the size of an unemployment check from somebody who works in the foodservice industries? If all they're doing is collecting those checks then they're probably homeless or close to it. I also find it hilarious that anyone believes that anyone out there is still living off the stimulus checks (those were gone like a leaf in the wind).

While there are some bums out there, I think the closing of restaurants led to a lot of people scattering and taking on other forms of employment. Foodservice at any level is hard, grueling work with people on their feet for their entire shift, over hot stoves, dealing with rude customers, and so on, in most cases for $7.25 an hour and in the cases of servers, way less. I'm not going to pull apart the whole economy, but most people can bump that up to $25 an hour mowing lawns in their neighborhood and most construction sites are good for at least $10 an hour just to pick up the mess.

I ran into this exact situation this weekend when I talked to an old friend who was looking for work. I asked him what kind of work he was looking for and his answer was "anything but food". This is NOT the first or even fiftieth time I've heard this.

I don't put all of this off on restaurant owners either. I think the number one thing people like to do on Facebook (yes, even higher than posting cat videos) is people complaining about restaurant service. I just think food services workers are/were so beat down that they scattered into other professions because there's just not enough dollars in unemployment or stimulus checks to keep up with just a smartphone bill.

It's going to be tough, but I think restaurants are going to have to work hard to build respect and bigger checks for their employees.

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