I don’t think it’s fear of Covid that’s keeping people from going back to work. The $7.50 an hour federal unemployment checks might be behind some of it.
but these servers were dropped like hot potatoes by these restaurants the minute the pandemic started and they were left to fend for themselves. And they know if there’s another surge, they’ll lose their jobs again.
I know locally in Nashville, the minute these jobs all went away last spring a lot of the people who worked those jobs had to move back home with their parents in whatever town they have left to come to Nashville. And they haven’t come back. Amazon is giving signing bonuses for workers at $15 an hour down the street, and the local restaurants still think they can get away with paying $2.56 an hour for tipped servers in Nashville.
The economics are just not working out for restaurants. The hospitality worker crowd left town and didn’t come back. Or they got higher paying jobs at grocery stores and fulfillment centers.
Originally Posted by
BamaVol
It didn’t change mine. Here in Florida, I don’t see a lot of fear anymore. Vaccinations are open to every adult. The fear was amongst us old folks and we took to Pfizer and Moderna like they were the fountain of youth. I just don’t think workers are staying out of restaurants because they’re worried about getting sick. I think they’re staying home because it’s a crappy job that doesn’t pay well and there is an alternative means of income at the moment.
Around here that ‘alternative means of income” is a job at Amazon paying 3 times the wage of a server, plus benefits, guaranteed 40 hour weeks, plus overtime, plus a signing bonus in a pandemic proof occupation where they won’t get one day notice of restaurant closure.