Coming soon to a restaurant near you.

[jh9]

The labor market is a market. It's hard to compete with the government which is the largest employer in pretty much every state.

Total employment numbers don't seem to jibe with the notion that the government is somehow distorting the labor market by swallowing up all the workers.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/arc...t_09032021.pdf



Some industries are simply losing workers to other industries. From the report above:

Employment in retail trade declined by 29,000 in August, with losses in food and beverage stores (-23,000) and in building material and garden supply stores (-13,000). Retail trade employment is down by 285,000 since February 2020.

In August, employment in leisure and hospitality was unchanged, after increasing by an average of
350,000 per month over the prior 6 months. In August, a job gain in arts, entertainment, and recreation
(+36,000) was more than offset by a loss in food services and drinking places (-42,000). Employment in
leisure and hospitality is down by 1.7 million, or 10.0 percent, since February 2020.

"Transportation and warehousing" and "education and health services" showed the biggest gains. Private education had a bump that offset the losses in public education.

People are simply leaving jobs you engage with (e.g. restaurants) for other private industry jobs where you don't see them. Mostly because they pay better and you don't have to interact with the general public.

The only way to woo them back is going to be saying something like "If someone tries to take the mask off your face or shoves you then you are allowed to take this blackjack and beat them senseless with no legal repercussions." Hell. For that I'd consider leaving tech and going back into retail. But certainly not for anything less. I'd imagine that opinion is shared pretty widely.

[rob_s]

I've been to Yard House twice in the past week after having not been in at least a year (not a COVID thing, just not generally a fan).

They now have tablets on the tables. I was hoping it meant I could order through the tablet instead of the human, which appears to be the intent but also appears not to be working or they have it disabled or something.

I would greatly prefer that method of ordering food. Seems like a "no brainer" to me.

it did allow for the tablet as the means of payment, which was a very good experience, overall.

Seems a far less expensive option than "robots".