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A quarter-century ago, there were 56 teenagers in the labor force for every "limited service" restaurant — that is, the kind where you order at the counter.
Today, there are fewer than half as many, which is a reflection both of teenagers' decreasing work force participation and of the explosive growth in restaurants.
But in an industry where cheap labor is an essential component in providing inexpensive food, a shortage of workers is changing the equation upon which fast-food places have long relied. This can be seen in rising wages, in a growth of incentives, and in the sometimes odd situations that business owners find themselves in.
Too many restaurants, not enough teens to work in them.
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A Fast-Food Problem: Where Have All the Teenagers Gone?
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TAPPING? You POLITICIANS! Don't you realize that the END of the "Wash
Cycle" is a TREASURED MOMENT for most people?!
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:21PM (5 children)
Nomsg
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:05PM
Less attitude.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:14PM
Truth.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:23PM (2 children)
If Immigrants were taking up the fast food jobs, then it would be a shortage of jobs, not a shortage of workers.
Maybe teenagers have enough self respect not to take a fast food job at the wages and working conditions that fast-food places have long relied in being able to impose. Maybe eve immigrants know better than to take these jobs. Hence a shortage of workers.
Immigrants are only hired to do jobs that no American would ever do. (That is why Trump's wives are all immigrants.)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:24PM (1 child)
Immigrants are only hired to do jobs that no American would ever do.
I know at *least* 5 people who would love to have those jobs. They can not get them. An illegal you can threaten with ICE for not showing up (and they do) A teenager? What are you going to do? Call his mom? You can pay an illegal under the table HALF min wage and they are cool with it. Why? Taxes. Some pay it, most dont. Try that on a teenager.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 20 2018, @01:57PM
It's not the wages that are the problem. I knew people in CA who paid their illegals more than the going rate, because that cash wage under the table was still cheaper than what they'd have been required to pay to the state for a fully-legal employee, and of course the illegals couldn't bitch about not getting workmans comp. (Wages being only about 30% of the cost.) Absent those state-imposed costs, wages went up to keep the good ones. Gee, I sense a trend.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.