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WSJ Praises "Waiter, Bartender Recovery" While 74% Of Americans Believe They Will Work Until They Die
When a month ago we basked in the glow of what we dubbed the "Waiter and Bartender Recovery", highlighting that while the US is about to see the best performing, highest paid job sector in the last decade, i.e., those in the energy field...
... get the axe as a result of the shale collapse and the "secret" US-Arab deal to make Putin beg, even if tens if not hundreds of thousands of well-paid (not retail, leisure, hospitality and temp workers), are about to get a pink slip as a result, one other job sector is seeing unprecedented gains, namely the US "waiter and bartender industry"...
... whose total workers are soon set to surpass the entire US manufacturing sector...
... little did we know that some would not grasp this was pure sarcasm. One place this was clearly missed is the WSJ, which in a front-page article today praises the "Wages Rise at Restaurants as Labor Market Tightens." No really, to the WSJ "wage" increases for minimum-wage line cooks and burger flippers is what is now considered the sign of the recovery.
We are not kidding. Some excerpts:
Wage growth is breaking out in an unexpected corner of the U.S. economy: the nation’s restaurants and bars.
Many restaurant owners are now scrambling to hire and retain workers, a potential precursor to widespread wage gains if it signals diminished slack in the labor market.
They are also considering hiring "smart restaurant" minimum wage-crushing, burger-flipping robots, ordering tablets and implementing countless other automation processes which assures thousands of fewer carbon-based lifeforms will serve your fast food sandwich in the years to come, as those jobs that are paid the least of all for the simple reason that they provides virtually zero value, and are thus expendable... but don't let that get in the way of a good narrative.
So back to the lovely bedtime story of the minimum-wage bartender and waiter recovery:
Food-service employment has surged since the recession ended nearly six years ago, growing twice as fast as overall payrolls. But those gains had largely failed to translate into better wages in the sector, until recently. Restaurant wages zoomed up to an annualized pace of more than 3% in the second half of last year from below a 1.5% pace in the first half of 2013, according to the Labor Department. Private-sector wages across the overall economy have grown at about a 2% pace for the past five years.
Oh wait, that's actually part of the reality. Let's go back to the mythical world where bartender job gains are a leading indicator to soaring wages.
Driving the brisker wage growth are a number of factors, including a higher minimum wage in many states, falling unemployment and stronger demand for meals outside the home, fueled by growing disposable incomes. Other sectors also may be feeling pressure. Big retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and TJX Cos., the parent company of T.J. Maxx, for example, recently announced raises.
In past economic cycles, low-skilled workers have been among the last to see a pickup in wage growth. But the latest gains suggest a consumer-driven recovery could draw more Americans back into the job market and further bolster consumption, a key driver of economic expansion.
Nobody mention the imminent mass energy layoffs, please, and the hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs that are about to bit the dust: jobs where one energy contractor makes as much as 10 minimu wage line cooks. Just... be quiet.
Meanwhile, in the waiter "industry"...
“A lot of new [establishments] are popping up and those restaurants want experienced people,” said Patrice Rice, chief executive of Patrice & Associates, a restaurant staffing firm. “There is fierce competition.” Some of her clients are offering significant raises, paid vacation time and even free meals for spouses to attract workers. A national pizza franchise recently paid her $5,000 per position to place managers. Her fees are up 25% from a year ago.
Sure, why not: go get that Ivy league degree because there is "fierce competition" for experienced waiters. One doesn't know if to laugh or cry at this hallmark of the weakest US "recovery" in history (which according to many others is merely the longest depression in US history, swept under the rug of $3 trillion in Fed excess reserves).
And then, inexplicably, just as things were getting good, as seen by the following quote...
“After a few hard years, customers are treating themselves again,” said Jennifer Durham, vice president of franchise development at Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc. Higher sales led the burger chain to add 20 stores last year, hire hundreds of employees and raise its wages—with wage growth twice as fast in 2014 as it was in 2013.
... reality crept in.
Outsized growth in restaurant wages might not be an entirely positive sign for the broader economy. In the previous two cycles, pay gains for restaurant workers peaked very late in the expansion, after broader wage growth plateaued. If escalating restaurant wages mark the end, rather than start, of wider wage growth, that would limit the economy’s ability to accelerate.
Actually, it would also mean the acceleration of robotization of said waiter jobs, and the result will be even more mass layoffs of these lowest paid workers, many of whom are unionized, resulting in even more backlash against big corporations, more strikes, more sit ins, and many more angry minimum-wage workers unable to pay off their jobs.
It also means something else, and far worse: according to a recent Pew survey of 7000 households titled “Americans’ Financial Security: Perception and Reality”, barely one-quarter (26%) of Americans have some notion of retirement in which they plan to stop working altogether when they reach retirement age. As MarketWatch summarizes, when asked about their retirement plans, 21% said they are never planning to retire, while 53% anticipate doing something else, including working at a different job.
Roughly 10,000 baby boomers reach retirement every day, so it’s not unexpected that so many of them are either not willing or able to stop work altogether, says Andrew Meadows, a San Francisco-based producer of “Broken Eggs,” a documentary about retirement. He spent seven weeks traveling around the U.S. and interviewed over 100 people about why they haven’t saved enough money. “You tend to get a negative tone when you talk to people about retirement,” he says.
Even Pew has trouble spinning the data, on one hand eager to report that "Americans are increasingly optimistic about their own finances and the economy", while at the same time admitting that "In an apparent contradiction, most do not feel financially secure." Maybe they haven't heard about the "waiter and bartender recovery"?
In fact, it appears that "most Americans" can't stop worrying about any aspect of their financial lives, starting with lack of savings, not having any discretionary income, paying bills and pretty much everything else:
So why are three-quarters of Americans doomed to working until the day they die? Simple: debt.
One reason fewer people plan to retire is that more families with older breadwinners have debt. The percentage of families with a head of household ages 55 or older that carried debt increased to 65.4% in 2013 from 63.4% in 2010, according to “Debt of the Elderly and Near Elderly, 1992-2013”, released last month by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Furthermore, the percentage of these families with debt payments greater than 40% of income—a traditional threshold measure of debt load trouble—increased to 9.2% in 2013 from 8.5% in 2010.
The amount of debt shouldered by all families has soared over the last two decades, mainly due to mortgage debt, says Craig Copeland, author of the EBRI report. The median debt level of all indebted families with heads aged 55 and over hit $47,900 in 2013, up from $17,879 in 1992. However, the percentage of families with debt also decreased significantly as the head of household of the family aged: Some 78.5% of families with heads of household ages 55 to 64 held debt in 2013 versus 41.3% of those with heads aged 75 or older.
Of course, every global depression has a silver lining, and here too MarketWatch tries to spin reality:
For some, not retiring may not be such a bad thing. “The idea of just resting is not something a lot people think about anymore,” Meadows says. “It wouldn’t surprise me if those who never plan to retire were the youngest people surveyed. It’s impossible for many people to gauge what their life would be like 30 or 40 years from now.” People are also living longer and staying healthier longer, he adds. “Many people think, ‘I don’t want my life to be over by 65. Maybe I can do that dream job I’ve always thought about.’”
Yes, you can surely have that dream job after you turn 65. Judging by the record number of old Americans, those 55 and over, in the labor force, it is only after you turn 65 these days that one's career prospects really pick up.
The punchline, of course, whether to the real, surreal or purely sarcastic aspects of the above narrative, is that all of this is happening with the stock market at all time highs, at levels which even current and former Fed officials admit the S&P is overvalued. What happens to the "waiter and bartender recovery" after the Fed finally loses control of the most manipulated and massaged "market" in US history, and the S&P suddenly finds itself bidless, the NYSE decides to halt all sales, and all those massive paper profits are nothing but a vague memory.
In our humble opinion, that would be a far more interesting line of investigation for the WSJ or any other mass media to pursue, instead of praising a "barender recovery" thanks to which 75% of Americans don't even dare to retire any more. That, or at least consider the other side of the wage question: what happens to gross US disposable income now that the shale boom has busted, and countless high paying jobs end up competing for the same fast food positions that suddenly are all the rage. Then again, we give the "mass media" the usua 6-9 months before they figure out what is really the key topic for the US economy...
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Waiting tables and bartending? Both 'professions' I'd rather be in than going back into finance...
Probably even these jobs will be the next to decline as it's getting to the point now where "Folks" can no longer afford real food in a real restaurant. And the burger flippers are being replaced by machines.
"See", says Paul Krugman, "Proof that trickle down economics works. I eat out at the best restaurants every single meal of every day, tip 25% at least, and still, my favorite waiters at 21, Jean Georges, La Bernadin, Per Se and Masa all leave for better pay at Goldman Sachs. Fuck Goldman Sachs."
Wait, I thought everyone was a truck driver now.
(Nobody is going to remember that ZH article, but the MOST popular profession in MOST states is Truck Driver)
You mean Uber has now extended to trucks?
Judging by the sheer number of posts, making $87/hr on a laptop seems to be the #1 profession everywhere right now.
my co-worker's mom makes $87 an hour on the laptop . She has been without work for 8 months but last month her pay check was $15653 just working on the laptop for a few hours. try this website... www.globe-report.com
"work until I die" eh?! so WTF am i paying SS/medicare for?
To keep the boomers, indigents, transplants and illiterate from burning your home down in order to eat you and your family. I like to think of my contributions as a proactive curb appeal management program of sorts. Dead bodies strewn all over my front yard would prolly lower my property value.
Bartending is an acient and honorable profession.
"Working till one dies" has quite a broad definition.
Light the man a fire and he'll be warm for the nigh. Light the man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I go on Craigslist help wanted EVERYDAY and have for the past ten years. I dont need to work, but would like something to do having a
sales and restaurant back ground...and being retired.
Restaurants need dishwashers, mgrs. waitstaff, delivery drivers etc
Car dealers need sales guys to work 24/7
Home improvement companies BOOMING and desparate
Courier and truck driving companies desparate
make 5k a day at home click here...pathetic
cleaning services BOOMING
Come sell for us, but we need an upfront fee...lmao
Proud American says "I was BORN TO SERVE...
drinks and food"
USA! USA! USA!
"74% Of Americans Believe They Will Work Until They Die". Unlikely. Robots are already here.
How can 74% of Americans work until they die when the labor participation rate is only 63%?
11% of those 'work until I die' Americans are already unemployed.
but ... good news...
The Soylent Corporation will be opening Voluntary Euthenasia Centers all over America starting in 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvxpETbsn08
For 50%, work is defined as " going to the mailbox"
Hold that thought, direct deposit now, wtf? Trying to put mail-people out of work?
Hey Creative Capitalism.
I wanted to catch Asian Carp, Flying Carp, and make rice balls, fish cakes, pet food, ranch feed... but then I thought about the Flies, the Smell, and the Complaints from Neighbors and Townships.
Not sure I trust the recovery of employment numbers in the FRED charts but they are all I got. FRED shows good recovery in Hospitality since 2008.
All Employees: Leisure & Hospitality
2015-01: 14,976 Thousands of Persons
Monthly, Seasonally Adjusted, USLAH, Updated: 2015-02-06
Manufacturing:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MANEMP (12.3 Million down from 19.5 Million) All Employees: Manufacturing
see a nice head and shoulders chart for Labor Participation rate. We have the same rate today as 1978.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CIVPART (Participation rate)
Productivity is like 200-300% higher or something like that. BLS might have problems with Productivity Data as Jobs are shipped overseas, Chinese assemble products in economic zones in the USA, and Computers and Automation raise productivity in multiples rather than using Labor.
http://www.bls.gov/lpc/home.htm
Were all the bars and restaurants busy during the last days of Rome?
As were the Colliseum, the baths and whore houses.
trust me, once you get near 60 years of age, you won't want to keep working...
Funny, I don't want to stop.
Not physical work any more, but I don't want my brain to atrophy as seems to happen
with most retirees.
Exercise increases brain power by making more neuronshttp://www.i-sis.org.uk/How_to_Improve_the_Brain_Power_and_Health_of_a_N...
If you can afford to retire then plaise do so PRONTO !
There are Youngstown people waiting for your job.
P.s. I am mother fucking tired of hearing that excuse !
You wanna keep you brain active in retirement, do something useful like Volunteer work.
I wonder how many would agree with you; I assume by 'working' yoiu meant 'working for money'. I'm definitely not one of them, as my job - let's just say I was a computer geek - was something I enjoyed greatly. When the job moved to Wisconsin (from Florida) I wasn't invited to follow. Being a few months short of 65 at the time, I chose to enter 'retirement' after discovering that employers wanted younger and cheaper IT guys. I would have kept at my job if it stayed the same and remained in Florida. So from your point of view, I definitely wanted to 'keep working' five years after turning 60, but not for the money. I enjoyed it.
From a different perspective, I have to wonder just what many who don't want to 'keep working' would do with their lives should their employment come to an end.
So soon The Head Bartender will be Obama
And Head Waitress - Hilary
And the American Govt The Food & Booze Corp of America ?
Sounds pretty good to me.
But the problem is that they are cooking up wars around the world in the same name through the Corp Branches
At the restaurant the other day and ordered "sweet tea".
They brought me a glass of unsweet and some sugar packets.
F
The 24% are civil (&federal) employees with fully unfunded pensions.
Looks like a market for manufacturing waiting and bartending machines in China is going to pick up steam.
read this article today in disbelief. WSJ celebrating the burger flipper recovery
Mission accomplished Federal Reserve! Maximum debt in every crevice of society.
Next your fellow banksters can seize accounts from the rest of the 99%.
I think part of the reason there's been such a surge of employment in the food/hospitality industry is because the gender makeup at college is 65% female, and most of them if not all are studying useless degrees for which there are no jobs.
I mean, if you're a brokerage firm on main street, are you gonna hire some chick that graduated in humanities????
Of coarse not. Pretty much, the only job a graduate in women's studies can get is a job which women generally do. Serve food and drink.
I work in finance. I don't meet chicks who are there that graduated with a degree in history, english, arts& science, etc. If they are, they're usually working in the mailroom, are the kitchen attendant, or sit at the reception desk.
My buddy's ex got an A at nursing school.
All she had to do was wear heels and a mini- skirt, sit in the front row, and after setting the hook in the young teacher, suck the chrome off his hitch.
As a bonus, the A ( second in class) got free uniforms.
Now she's trolling for a doctor.
I think doctors these days are smart and on to little hookers like this.
I went to see a gastroeterologist this past week. First time visit. He looks at me and says "You look good, what the fuck are you doing here?" as he flips through my file.
During the checkup he makes a point of saying 'Maybe your wife needs to chase you around a little more" to which I told him I was single and didn't need that crap. He said maybe I should look for a "Good one" and it wouldn't be such a hassle. I reminded him that a study was done recently that found that "Men who were nagged at by their wives lived shorter lives than one's who didn't or men who weren't married at all".
I then told him "Good ones don't exist" to which he said with a smirk "You know, you're right, they don't"
And this was coming from a 65 year old medical doctor (professional).
Second hand cigarette smoking ban killed the restaurant/bar business. But you can buy marijuana now. Fuck them. I seldom go out to eat.
Cannot wait for liberals to create a marijuana smoking zone within an eatery establishment to lure back traffic. 30% mandatory gratuity, even if the food and service is shitty. Just imagine the money you can make on hungry bong smoking fiends. They're so fucking high, they won't remember what they ordered when bill arrives. Hospitality staff can pad the bill.
When an old person in an Innuit (Eskimo) village was no longer of any use to the said village, they would put on a fur coat at nightfall and walk out of the igloo into the wilderness until they could walk no more and then the old person would sit in the snow and quietly die from hypothermia.
Just saying.
Oh yeah, and let me say that I have worked in kitchens fro the past few years (I'm now 50) and I can tell you that the worst pains in the ass co-workers are the over 50 crowd.
They're tired and irritable, they think their age and experience gives them authority and rights beyond the younger workers. They complain all the time and they're just plain old pains in the ass.
I prefer young people as co workers and I see the older folk hanging on, mostly because they have no choice. Therefore they are miserable and feel entitled and they make everyone around them, including their bosses miserable.
Just saying.
Somebody push the reset button.
I would do it, if I could get near that son of a bitch.
So we are going to be a nation of 70 year old bartenders and waitresses? Young people will be unemployed and will have to wait around for some geezer Bud Light-pourer to kick the bucket.
Anyone over 45 needs to get in shape now or die.
No one is coming to your rescue.
Join a militia in your state, and learn how to handle a weapon.
Your life is in your own hands.