Originally Posted by
YVR Cockroach
COVID employment benefits should be long exhausted so what's the verdict? Where I am, the recruitment situation for restaurant workers is even more dire than pre-COVID (roughly 2/3 vs 3/4 ratio of those entering the workforce to those leaving). Prices up, service generally poor, food might be o.k. or otherwise. We're just spending our money eating (and cooking) quality at home. Never eaten so much steak and lamb in my life. All the fast food outfits are advertising for workers at wages higher than minimum.
In my area, we're generally not seeing staffing issues at restaurants now. Occasionally, but nothing like it was before. I haven't felt that service is any worse than it was pre-COVID. Still hit and miss overall and fine at better restaurants. We don't eat much fast food though, so that may be a different story. I will say thought, that we went through a McDonald's drive-thru in Indiana a couple weeks ago on our way home from Michigan and it was nearly a 30 minute ordeal -- and then they only gave me one of the cheeseburgers in my two cheeseburger meal.
In general, it's going to take some time to get back to normal. I'm sure a lot of those folks who got paid to stay home were smart and looked for better jobs, got additional training, etc., and moved on. It's a game of catch up now.