The new normal- burn baby, burn.

[nscalbitz]

Someone who usually makes a whole lot of sense, reads the cards:

https://wolfstreet.com/2021/07/22/after-slashing-33-of-their-workers-in-six-years-railroads-complain-about-labor-shortages-amid-uproar-from-shippers-over-slow-shipments/

[Chris333]

Around here McDonalds have signs out front for sign on bonuses for new employees. A pizza I just ordered had a job application taped right to the box.

[MK]

An Outback that I went to closed at 8pm, on a weekend nevertheless, because shortage of staff.  They had only TWO servers for the entire place!

[Kentuckian]

“Turns out, it’s a lot easier to cut workers than it is to suddenly hire workers:” Great quote. It’s always easier - and much quicker - to destroy than to build.

Airline industry is seeing the same thing. I have heard two stories from last week of friends that had flights cancelled. One friend flew out of Raleigh, NC, flew to Atlanta, circled the airport for two hours waiting on a landing slot, then flew back to Raleigh because they were running out of fuel. Made it the next day.

A local restaurant somehow kept paying all of their staff throughout the pandemic. Business there is gangbusters now because you don’t have to wait very long, they actually have staff.

[learmoia]

Some restaurants here are closed Sunday -Monday to give their limited staff 'time off'.

~Ian

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've flown a couple times recently and noticed that a number of places in the airports were closed at odd times. Likely for the same reasons.

Want an after dinner coffee at BWI? You're out of luck.

One other thing I'm thinking is that, especially for this situation: if you're looking for a relatively low paying job, there are FAR easier places to get to than an airport. I think the pandemic has really made people reevaluate "is this worth the BS?" and the answer has often turned out to be "no".

I'm wondering what type of labor reforms we'll see from this. I don't think it's all money, either. Maybe the end to capricious scheduling of low wage employees? Maybe places realizing they can't treat their employees like trash? I'm hopeful, but not optimistic.

[MVW]

I think the pandemic has really made people reevaluate "is this worth the BS?" and the answer has often turned out to be "no".

I'm wondering what type of labor reforms we'll see from this. I don't think it's all money, either. Maybe the end to capricious scheduling of low wage employees? Maybe places realizing they can't treat their employees like trash? I'm hopeful, but not optimistic.

That would be a refreshing change. And now that I'm closing in on retirement age, I imagine we'll get around to workplace reform.   


Jim

[Hyperion]

One other point not addressed in the article is the caliber of employee who does respond positively to the furlough callback.   Most of your really good employees go find jobs elsewhere.  Because they can.  So, while certainly not universal, your callbacks skew towards less-desirable employees.  And even the good ones are disenchanted by the whole process and much more likely to believe what the old-head nay-sayers say in the future.  You poison your own well.  You will never again be as efficient as you were before. 

I've been through these cycles on the railroad a few times now.  And it's always the same.

And it's no better on the exempt side either.   The paradigm shift there is so much different than the railroads have ever had to deal with they just don't know what to do.  For too long (forever) they've seen the work as a "calling".  And, for many of us, it is.  But (and this is not a slight) not for the younger generation. It's a job.  It can be replaced with another.  That pays better.  And doesn't have you doing the work that, literally, 4 people did just a year ago.  I couldn't tell you how long it's been since I met a new-hire who was excited to work for the railroad.   You just can't treat those people the same as you can those who are there as a "calling".  Exempt job conditions, both in the field and in the corporate environment, have gotten significantly worse over my 20 years, not better. 

Compensation, in every form, is literally worse than when I started -- new-hires today are paid less (yes, salary today is LESS than it was twenty years ago), get less time-off,  have significantly less health benefits, no longer have a pension, and on top of all of that will work more hours.   It's simply not an aspirational career as it once was.  Now, for all too many, it's something you do coming out of school while waiting for something better.  Retention rates on new hires have plummeted.  Attrition on existing employees, once a number that was effectively near-zero, is off the charts. 

Railroad leadership still views the competition for their employees -- both exempt and scheduled -- as just the other roads.  So if times are "bad" for them they don't have to worry about employee retention because there's no where for them to go.  And that's just not the way the world works any longer.   A skilled journeyman can practically name their price with an employer.  And exempts aren't silo'd into "railroading" -- if anything it's the opposite -- and the multi-disciplinary work that they all end up doing makes them desirable for virtually anyone.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

One other point not addressed in the article is the caliber of employee who does respond positively to the furlough callback.   Most of your really good employees go find jobs elsewhere.  Because they can.  So, while certainly not universal, your callbacks skew towards less-desirable employees.  And even the good ones are disenchanted by the whole process and much more likely to believe what the old-head nay-sayers say in the future.  You poison your own well.  You will never again be as efficient as you were before. 

I've been through these cycles on the railroad a few times now.  And it's always the same.

And it's no better on the exempt side either.   The paradigm shift there is so much different than the railroads have ever had to deal with they just don't know what to do.  For too long (forever) they've seen the work as a "calling".  And, for many of us, it is.  But (and this is not a slight) not for the younger generation. It's a job.  It can be replaced with another.  That pays better.  And doesn't have you doing the work that, literally, 4 people did just a year ago.  I couldn't tell you how long it's been since I met a new-hire who was excited to work for the railroad.   You just can't treat those people the same as you can those who are there as a "calling".  Exempt job conditions, both in the field and in the corporate environment, have gotten significantly worse over my 20 years, not better. 

Compensation, in every form, is literally worse than when I started -- new-hires today are paid less (yes, salary today is LESS than it was twenty years ago), get less time-off,  have significantly less health benefits, no longer have a pension, and on top of all of that will work more hours.   It's simply not an aspirational career as it once was.  Now, for all too many, it's something you do coming out of school while waiting for something better.  Retention rates on new hires have plummeted.  Attrition on existing employees, once a number that was effectively near-zero, is off the charts. 

Railroad leadership still views the competition for their employees -- both exempt and scheduled -- as just the other roads.  So if times are "bad" for them they don't have to worry about employee retention because there's no where for them to go.  And that's just not the way the world works any longer.   A skilled journeyman can practically name their price with an employer.  And exempts aren't silo'd into "railroading" -- if anything it's the opposite -- and the multi-disciplinary work that they all end up doing makes them desirable for virtually anyone.

As someone who runs a professional services practice in a competitive labor market, these are all the things that I personally stress about.

I often refer to railroads and other "old school industrials" as examples of what NOT to do when it comes to working with people I want to keep around.

[Philip H]

I have little sympathy for industries or companies who decided the way to "maximize short-term shareholder value" was to minimize labor costs.  especially in an industry that is mostly all about labor.  They rolled the dice and lost.  Bigly.

Compensation, in every form, is literally worse than when I started -- new-hires today are paid less (yes, salary today is LESS than it was twenty years ago), get less time-off,  have significantly less health benefits, no longer have a pension, and on top of all of that will work more hours.   It's simply not an aspirational career as it once was.  Now, for all too many, it's something you do coming out of school while waiting for something better.  Retention rates on new hires have plummeted.  Attrition on existing employees, once a number that was effectively near-zero, is off the charts.

This is the case in many many fields.  Its a problem that can be solved, but the solution required undoing those twenty years of cuts.

[ednadolski]

I have little sympathy for industries or companies who decided the way to "maximize short-term shareholder value" was to minimize labor costs.  especially in an industry that is mostly all about labor.  They rolled the dice and lost.  Bigly.

Regardless, you and I and all of us still pay the price for it, in the long term as well as the short term.

Ed

[Englewood]

I had a switchman with me once who had been furloughed a couple of times. He told me the first time he went and got another job while waiting for the railroad to call him back. Decent job with good pay and good hours. When the railroad called him back, he told his boss that he was quitting to go back to the railroad. Well, after a couple of days of being back, he got furloughed again. The second time he got called back he got to work about a month before being furloughed again. That day I was working with him he was back for the third and final time. He'd found another job and it was his last day at the railroad. Sometimes I think that manpower levels are determined by someone's 6 year old daughter.

[MVW]

The paradigm shift there is so much different than the railroads have ever had to deal with they just don't know what to do.  For too long (forever) they've seen the work as a "calling".  And, for many of us, it is.  But (and this is not a slight) not for the younger generation. It's a job.  It can be replaced with another.  That pays better.  And doesn't have you doing the work that, literally, 4 people did just a year ago.  I couldn't tell you how long it's been since I met a new-hire who was excited to work for the railroad.   You just can't treat those people the same as you can those who are there as a "calling".  Exempt job conditions, both in the field and in the corporate environment, have gotten significantly worse over my 20 years, not better. 

This could easily be a description of journalism and the newspaper industry, and the short-term thinking that gutted the industry from the inside.

Mark Twain said that once printer's ink gets on a boy's shirt, it takes three generations to wash out. Pretty sure we're all out of generations at this point.

Jim

[sirenwerks]

I have little sympathy for industries or companies who decided the way to "maximize short-term shareholder value" was to minimize labor costs.  especially in an industry that is mostly all about labor.  They rolled the dice and lost.  Bigly.

This.  I think more than ever people are talking to each other about employers and management at the site level, and when they get a bad rep, potential employees are staying away.  And having worked food service for about 7 years as a second income, I know it grows old.  I think a lot of food workers just found out during shut downs they don't need the alcohol and coke-fueled restaurant lifestyle, which is as much a draw as the money.

[Specter3]

I am a middle school science teacher. I have the highest state test scores in my school. My friend is an elementary school teacher and last year, during the pandemic, she had every one of her students reading on grade level. Both of us are being leaned on about trivial, meaninless, paperwork that takes a crapload of time and offers no furtherence of our ability to instruct students. I literally could have another job at double the pay inside of a day or two. Our middle school ELA teacher did just that last year. I was reffing a soccer game this last weekend and some parents on the sideline behind me were teachers as well. They all were very disgruntled over the conditions they were facing. If these conditions continue it wont be long before teachers start finding other professions in numbers that are not replaceable. So the shortsightedness is not limited to the private sector.