Unemployment and The Job Market

[HarleyQuinn]

I feel like we may've had a thread but I couldn't find it.

A record 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August, led by food and retail industries

Job openings declined sharply in August while hiring also fell and the level of workers quitting their jobs hit the highest level since at least late 2000.

www.cnbc.com

"A total of 892,000 workers in the foodservice and accommodation industries left their jobs, while 721,000 retail workers departed along with 534,000 in health care and social assistance.

Hires declined by 439,000 for a month in which nonfarm payrolls increased by 366,000. The hires rate fell to 4.3% from 4.6%, due largely to a plunge in leisure and hospitality. The sector, which took the hardest pandemic hit, saw hiring decline by 233,000, sending the rate down to 7.9% from 9.5% in July."

I'm not surprised at all. Some of those sectors stayed open during the height of COVID and the sheer mental/physical fatigue (plus dealing with COVID related bullshit/masks drama/people being assholes more than normal) on top of the lower salaries probably forced a ton of people to just decide, "This isn't worth it."

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Service industry jobs aren't real jobs until "Hey! Why is Wendy's closing at 7 PM!? And why can't I get Starbucks near the mall anymore?" It's going to be a very very interesting next few years and I hope it leads to some more power going towards the workers.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Service industry jobs aren't real jobs until "Hey! Why is Wendy's closing at 7 PM!? And why can't I get Starbucks near the mall anymore?" It's going to be a very very interesting next few years and I hope it leads to some more power going towards the workers.

I think a lot of service head honchos see the $$ and high turnover and are like, "Why should we be paying these people more than part-time hours with no benefits/minimum wage?" and it's like, that's precisely why there is often such a high turnover because such workers aren't getting paid what they should (especially for the majority being customer-facing roles... anybody who's had to deal with an irate customer should get a bonus), often don't get any benefits, and are the glue that makes those places run.

In the summer, it's started changing $$ salary-wise but there are still variances in getting legitimate benefits e.g. health insurance, etc.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Thousands of John Deere Workers Go On Strike

"More than 10,000 workers at 14 different John Deere locations went on strike at the stroke of midnight after the United Auto Workers union said it was unable to reach a new contract with the tractor company.

"Companies are having to do more to hire workers. They're offering signing bonuses, better packages to hire workers," he said. "The flipside of that is to keep your existing workers and to keep them satisfied, you have to do more. So we're finally starting to see some improvement on the wage front."

Elizabeth Warren Backs John Deere Workers

Later, Warren said on Twitter that Deere is "trying to cheap out on providing decent pay and benefits to its workers" despite being on track for a record year of nearly $6 billion in profits.

The rejected contract at Deere would have paid the average production worker about $72,000 at the end of the contract, compared with about $60,000 last year. The contract also included a return of a cost of living adjustment and improvements in benefits.

 

[SFH]

So all of my New Orleans film and Atlanta film union people are posting a LOT about an upcoming strike. Of note, one of them works in props, FX, set dressing, etc... type jobs so her field is a part of it. Another one of note is a stunt man and an occasional on screen character with speaking parts, so his job is a part of it too. A lot of the other posting people are film festival organizers, a pyro technician, and a LOT of people involved in extras work.

I'm guessing this is a big deal.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

It's a big enough deal that I created a thread about it in the Movies/TV folder. Ahem.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

It's a big enough deal that I created a thread about it in the Movies/TV folder. Ahem.

I even saw that thread. D'oh! Moved my post over to there

 

[SFH]

When i posted that I was taking a break from reading school stuff and probably had the other thread open in a different tab.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

The Great Resignation is ripping through the restaurant industry

Retail isn't alone in feeling the effects of the worker shortage. Here's another.

finance.yahoo.com

"This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that quits rates in the food service industry hit 6.8%, compared to an overall quits rate of 2.9%. Guggenheim analyst Gregory Francfort notes the quits rate for food service is well above the 5% peaks seen in quits in 2006 and 2019, and 4.1% average over the past 20 years.

The company (Domino's) saw sales fall in the third quarter after 41 straight quarters of U.S. same-store sales increases, ending one of the most impressive runs in the fast-food industry."

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Tight U.S. job market triggers strikes for more pay

Thousands of workers remain on strike across the United States demanding higher pay and better conditions despite Hollywood make-up artists and camera operators reaching a deal over the weekend to avoid a walkout, and the tight jobs market has only emboldened .

www.reuters.com

"Union membership has been declining steadily in recent decades, falling to under 11% of employed Americans in 2020 from 20% in 1983, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, 68% of Americans now approve of unions, the highest proportion since 1965, according to a Gallup poll in August, and that rate climbs to almost 78% for those aged 18 to 29.

More than 28,000 healthcare workers at 13 Southern California Kaiser Permanente hospitals and hundreds of medical centers voted overwhelmingly earlier this month to authorize a strike. They want more pay and higher levels of staffing to reduce burnout worsened by the pandemic."

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/11/17/deere-strike-contract-vote/?utm_source=reddit.com

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

What a vile blurb under the headline there, "labor militancy" used to describe a totally peaceful strike. US businesses would never be able to handle French workers, that's for goddamn sure.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

CEOs are joining the 'Great Resignation'

CEO turnover spiked in the first half of 2021, as companies tapped new talent to navigate the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and stressed-out chief executives sought a career change, a study from recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles found.

www.cnn.com

"There were 103 CEO appointments in the first half of 2021 out of 1,095 companies in 24 regions that Heidrick studied, including the United States, China, and some European countries. Six months prior, in the second half of 2020, 49 companies changed CEOs, according to the study.

Women made up 13% of the new CEOs in the first half of this year, up from 6% in the prior period in the regions the report studied. Yet the churn did not lead to big strides in diversity, according to the study. It found that 3% of Fortune 100 CEOs are Black, 4% are Hispanic or Latino, 4% are Asian, and 1% are Middle Eastern or North African, less than their share of the U.S. population."

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

HORRIBLE PEOPLE thread crossover.

People don't want to work 20 hours a week selling $25 smoothies with a schedule that has no consistency. Wahhhhhhhh!

 

[geniusMoment]

If you're hiring someone for a part time job paying probably 10-15 an hour it's absurd to think they would have an "open schedule". Which is code for be available whenever we need you. Unless you're with a partner who is wealthy/making very good money that is pretty much not possible. Even young people usually have other commitments for part time jobs like school. It's why so much of the labor shortage is BS.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Time for me to put down the Pringles and Morningstar Farms corn dogs. Kellogg's is on strike.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

If you're hiring someone for a part time job paying probably 10-15 an hour it's absurd to think they would have an "open schedule". Which is code for be available whenever we need you. Unless you're with a partner who is wealthy/making very good money that is pretty much not possible. Even young people usually have other commitments for part time jobs like school. It's why so much of the labor shortage is BS.

Even then, you have to "work around" the work schedule in general anyway, which can be ridiculously hard. Even part-time, if you're working 6 hours a day from say 9 AM to 3 PM, you still have a small window for haircuts, doctor's appointments, dentist's appointments, visiting your families for activities. That's not even going into those who have children dropping them off at school/picking them up from school, helping with their homework, having to cover for their spouse, etc.

Having dealt with "open" schedules, it's chaotic at best never knowing what you're scheduled for week to week and having to change appointments on a whim that you made a month or more in advance because you're scheduled that time. A set schedule makes it far easier on the worker(s), the person doing the actual scheduling, and the efficiency overall.

 

[geniusMoment]

The poor grammar (to instead of too) give away it is just an individual store instead of a corporate letter, but still not a good look:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1469437351822774272

 

[Dandy]

This is only barely tied to the topic but since @tekcop decided to get rid of the search function, I decided this is a commentary on empowered workers standing up to dumbshit managers trying the same old stuff of yesteryear in today’s job market. You have to love Shelly and the “subordinates” telling Jer to fuck off. I like to think the wages will be even across the board soon and Jer may be looking for work.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1513264759143297027

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

lol proprietary information