Labor Day: So, where are former restaurant and retail workers at these days?

First, I sympathize with them. My first job after delivering newspapers (yes, kids did that at one time) was at a local drugstore, a former Walgreens that members of my dad's church purchased. (He had been the lead pharmacist.)

Every Thursday or maybe Friday, we got a schedule for the ENTIRE next week. None of this "just-in-time" scheduling which is probably counterproductive, no matter the "peak time" business efficiency experts claims. It's more efficient AND more sane, because, owners and managers, if even pre-COVID, this was causing people to quit, guess what? YOU had to pick up the slack.

That said, per the header, where ARE these people working, though, especially in wingnut states that scrubbed the additional federal unemployment benefits? It can't be those con-job "charity event marketing" jobs, because, going by the way Career Builder has been spamming me for weeks, these folks are apparently as desperate as restaurants for warm employable bodies.

Is it the likes of Uber and Lyft? If so, that's jumping from frying pan halfway into fire, isn't it? Sure, on paper, you have control of your own hours, but in reality, if you want decent money, you don't.

Is it delivery driving groceries for DoorDash or similar? See above.

Is it delivery driving for Yellow Satan? Again, see above.

Is it simply working less, and for financial cover, either doubling up on the number of roommates or else moving back in with one's parents? 

Seriously, I'm wondering.

That said, if 55 percent of Americans expect to be looking for new jobs in the next year, these restaurant and retail workers aren't alone.

 

Charlie Warzel talks further about this. Big takeaway:

The current brand of career skepticism I’m talking about is different, more absolute. It’s not a rejection of how somebody navigates the game, it’s a rejection of the game itself.

Good as far as it goes.

 

I don't want a career, either. I want a better job life. 

 

But, unlike Millennials, rather than vagueness, I have a couple of specifics.

As part of that, I want:

A. National health care.

B. Guaranteed minimum vacation time, at least like in Canada if not Europe.

Beyond that, per Warzel's piece, I want many careerists to admit that either luck or connections have played a fair part in where they're at today.

Meanwhile, despite all their claims of "we need workers," there's good evidence that many industries are being at least as picky as they were after the Great Recession, especially on not wanting to h ire the long-term unemployed. There's also evidence of age discrimination, which has always been harder to prove than race or sex discrimination.