Bloomberg wrote:As the U.S. job market comes roaring back, there’s a growing debate about whether there are enough workers to power faster economic growth.
Companies from fast food chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. to chicken producer Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. and MGM Resorts International say they can’t find -- or entice -- enough workers. In earnings calls and business surveys, executives often blame stimulus checks and generous unemployment benefits for hampering hiring efforts.
But economists and policy makers are unclear about what’s really causing this gap and how long it will last. Hiring remains robust for now, indicating these labor disparities aren’t necessarily a problem. The worry is if labor shortages do persist -- especially in the leisure and hospitality industry -- that could slow demand and possibly lead to price increases.
The reasoning behind this labour shortage is pretty straightforward - newly expanded pandemic supports and unemployment benefits when combined with the ongoing danger of service positions to COVID exposure has seemingly pulled the rug out from under an industry notorious for poor pay, precarious working conditions and from being dominated by that particularly odious class of small business tyrant called the fast food franchisee. Given the benefit of stimulus checks and stronger benefits packages, workers are seemingly withdrawing their labour from the sector in unprecedented numbers, leading to viral twitter posts about drive through windows with signs saying 'Due to no staff we are CLOSED' and irritation at long waits and poor service.
Part and parcel with this withdrawal of labour is of course, the responses of capital and the state to the shortage and the drumbeat prerogative to get the economy 'back on track'. South Carolina has announced that it is ending participation in the federal pandemic unemployment benefits scheme specifically because of this labour shortage, calling them a 'dangerous federal entitlement' that encourages people to stay at home rather than work. One McDonald's franchisee in Florida, notably, hit upon the unique solution of offering $50 to people that show up to interview. This strategy bought them some breathless and upbeat news coverage, but according to reports on Twitter it came with a particularly ruthless twist:
Twitter wrote:You must fill out application and provide your social security number and drivers license with photo ID to get the interview. You will be offered a job. If you decline, you get reported to the [Florida] Employment Security Commission. If you are drawing unemployment, your benefits are terminated immediately because you refused a job. McDonald's will share your signed application with the Employment Security Commission to show you applied for a job, was offered a job and declined it.
All this highlights something I think the pandemic has brought to the surface in the way few modern crises have managed: the ways in which capital and government have co-mingled over the past few decades to create an environment of wage stagnation and ever-escalating 'pro work' tweaks and austerity measures to social safety nets, often with the specific intent of maintaining precarity and keeping labour costs low. In the coming months I expect there's going to be increasing pressure on the US federal government and governments across the Western world to immediately rollback all of the pandemic supports they put in place, even if (as is probably likely) COVID does not recede quietly and quickly away. All this while precarious workers continue to disprortionately die of the disease and the contradictions of our capitalist system continue to mount.
What sayest thou NSG? What do you think the future of the hospitality industry holds? Will we see a further rollback of benefits, or will governments go even farther and inaugurate a new era of 'austerity' in compensation for the COVID crisis and the brief glimmer of state action it provided?
