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posted by n1 on Tuesday May 30 2017, @10:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the instant-noodles dept.

The U.S. restaurant industry is in a funk. Blame it on lunch.

Americans made 433 million fewer trips to restaurants at lunchtime last year, resulting in roughly $3.2 billion in lost business for restaurants, according to market-research firm NPD Group Inc. It was the lowest level of lunch traffic in at least four decades.

While that loss in traffic is a 2% decline from 2015, it is a significant one-year drop for an industry that has traditionally relied on lunch and has had little or no growth for a decade.

"I put [restaurant] lunch right up there with fax machines and pay phones," said Jim Parks, a 55-year-old sales director who used to dine out for lunch nearly every day but found in recent years that he no longer had room for it in his schedule.

Like Mr. Parks, many U.S. workers now see stealing away for an hour at the neighborhood diner in the middle of the day as a luxury. Even the classic "power lunch" is falling out of favor among power brokers.

Re-heating leftovers in the break room microwave takes two minutes and is guaranteed to be on your diet?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by n1 on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:29AM (3 children)

    by n1 (993) on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:29AM (#518020) Journal

    Yes, it's complicated and can be expensive to hire people in many places, BUT...

    Employers always limit themselves to people they can't do without... No normal business hires people just for the fun of it, or to 'create jobs' regardless of how 'easy' it is to hire/fire people. Companies can do a lot of things that are really easy to do, buy more equipment or services... But they don't, even if would make their business more efficient and profitable in the medium term, because they'd rather avoid the direct and associated costs now. They wait until it's unavoidable and their current systems are completely overworked and productivity suffers in a quantifiable way that can't be solved by putting more pressure and targets on the employees using the equipment.

    If management wont buy new tools, printers, computers, networking equipment, fleet vehicles because they're looking at numbers, no matter how easy and good value they are for the business, they're not going to just hire people (who don't come with a warranty or refund policy) because it's 'easier' than it was last week... Hiring new people also requires training and oversight while they get settled into their new role, it's just not worth it if you're already running a business profitably.

    The only time it does happen is in large corporations that operate inefficiently, or companies where the employee has no guaranteed hours/work, so you can them if/when you need them... Then the employees cannot plan or budget when they have no idea which one of their 3 jobs might give them some hours this week.

    It's also very easy to hire/contract people in plenty of places, but when you're offering low remuneration for people's time and no actual job security, you do not get quality or dedicated people working for you, especially when at that level, they are barely able to afford to live within an hour commute if they're in a population center.

    Every extra person hired -- that you don't actually need, but would be nice to have when things are really busy -- is a bonus taken away from management or a dividend paid to a shareholder... Much easier to just get the existing staff who know their jobs to pitch in a few extra hours a week during the critical times. Cheaper and more efficient than hiring and training someone new every single time.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:54AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:54AM (#518054) Journal

    Having some slack and margins is usually more efficient and makes a robust operation at tough times possible. It's probably all perverted incentives and cognitive fallacy. Save money now and incur future losses that eat up all short term gains and then some.

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 31 2017, @03:16AM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday May 31 2017, @03:16AM (#518063)

    It's worth noting that GP's attitude is carefully fostered by many sources of information fed to the economically ignorant.

    Employers never hire people out of generosity. They hire people due to increased demand for their products, or due to a perceived opportunity to invest in something new. Period. End of discussion. And if you don't understand this, then you have never been in the shoes of a manager trying to convince those higher on the food chain that they need an additional FTE.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 31 2017, @09:14AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 31 2017, @09:14AM (#518188) Journal

      They hire people due to increased demand for their products, or due to a perceived opportunity to invest in something new.

      That happens more often when it is easier and cheaper to employ people. Employing people is just another cost. The lower that is, the more opportunities there are to invest in things that need labor.