Whenever I quick read the thread's title I read it as sewage shortage. :p

me too!

I'm sure many in the "lower rungs" of the restaurant/service industry have found ways to survive and thrive during the pandemic and are now giving a collective middle finger to their former jobs/bosses.

Several of my favorite servers have moved onto different things.

One was one month from finishing his MBA anyways, and is now working using his degree.
Another left to go work in nursing homes.
Another went to sell cars.

Basically, without the certainty of when things would return to normal, they found other options that at the very least didn't involve being as harassed as they were when serving. Many are still picking up an occasional shift here and there, for some extra money. But they no longer rely on it to live on.

Do you believe this was different than before the pandemic? I suppose it depends on the area, but most servers I've known or talked to didn't view it as a career. It was a flexible job to help support them while they were working on something else. One of my friends was a server for several years in her late 20's and she's now an obstetrician. It helped her get through med school. Most of my favorite bars and restaurants in Chicago had 20-somethings working there and there would be new people there every 6-12 months. The pandemic may have hastened plans and helped them move to the next phase of their life. But that doesn't explain why there is no demand for those jobs now among people entering the workforce for the first time. The server shortage is not about turnover, that's always been incredibly high. In 2019, the restaurant industry turnover rate was 75%. The problem is there is no new inflow.

In some cases, it was natural turnover. In the others, yes they looked at the restaurant industry as their careers and last year just totally changed how they looked at it.

I do believe the turnover among car salespeople is higher. I predict your friend will be back to waiting tables (or move on to something else).

I agree with you, I think last year was a catalyst for restaurant workers to make the change they would have made eventually anyway.
Something that's always bothered me about this thread is that it's only about servers. There are all kinds of employers that are having a hard time hiring for entry level jobs. So it's too simplistic to say restaurants treat employees poorly and therefore there's a server shortage.

Other than the $1200/month government stipend, the other variable that changed was that the server job was, for all practical purposes, eliminated by various state governments off and on for over a year. Other businesses were affected too (theaters, event centers, etc.), but none that affected as many jobs as the restaurant industry.

Anecdotally, something I've started to hear around my area (where many vaccinated people are still wearing masks while walking outside alone even though it's not required), is that many parents aren't allowing their teenagers to work because they're still concerned about COVID. These kids likely aren't even collecting the unemployment stipend, so that's not the motivation. But they make up a pretty large percentage of the candidate field for chain and fast food restaurants.

However, are the parents letting/taking their teens go to such restaurants anyway as customers?

David

Yes, but how would we have any way of knowing if it's the same dataset?
Besides, the one thing that stands out from the past 18 months is the inconsistency with which people apply rules (government or their own) to their personal lives. So yes, it's likely that some people allow their teens to visit restaurants, unmasked, but not work at them.

visiting a restaurant for 2 hours, maybe only 1-2 times a week, is significantly less than working at one for 4-8 hours a day, 2-5 days a week. Plus sitting at a table versus moving throughout the restaurant…

But the workers can mask up. When restaurants opened indoor dining here, workers had to mask 100% of the time.
Meanwhile, our school district was open full time since the start of 2021, so teenagers were wearing masks and moving around the school for 8 hours a day anyway. I understand there are more controls in place in a school where the patrons are the same every day vs. a restaurant, but it's still not very logical. It's possible it's just as much the kids using COVID to their advantage to convince their parents that it's not safe for them to work, and instead draw a big allowance.

Bingo.

David

Despite the state of Florida being pretty much wide open, I continue to be surprised at all the restaurant workers I see wearing masks. I have to assume they’ve been demanded by the restaurants and wonder if that isn’t part of the straw that breaks the camel’s back. There are better crappy jobs perhaps that don’t make you wear the mask all shift. I know I chafe every time I put one on now (church and doctors appointments) and can’t wait to yank the thing off.

Yes, it is possible. I don't expect that this represents that grand a percentage of the missing worker pool. Pre-COVID, teens had already been shunning this sort of work, especially in fast food, and seniors have been replacing this (which is a sad commentary, probably well-suited for a /PR discussion). Meanwhile, for several years, I've been saying that the restaurant model as we know it (at least in the SF Bay Area) is not an economically viable model in the long term. The past 15 months have only served to concentrate the days of reckoning.