I think as a little bit of a counter to the idea that people have just spent the time to better themselves and are now working better jobs rather than serving jobs (although I'd agree there's an element of that): I work at a major university. This university relies very heavily on hiring students part time to work in the dining halls. I think the number I saw was they have around 400 full time staff, and during the normal year hire about 4000 part time staff. Last I heard they've had problems hiring more part time staff than they have full time. They've had to close some of the dining halls down, and limit hours at others. Just a day or two ago, they put out a request asking faculty and staff to consider volunteering their time to work a shift or two at the dining halls. (Which just made me laugh, I'd pay money to see some of our faculty do that). The thing is, I'm not convinced that these students that normally would be working these jobs are working elsewhere. They're just not working at all these days.