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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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But what can you do with it?
-- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner
(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.