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Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

I've seen countless examples of local businesses being far more interested in using social media and signage and interviews to whine and complain about "not being able to find help" than actually trying to find 'help'.

By refusing to fill positions they get to shout to the press and politicians about how lazy people just want to collect government checks, while also doing everything they can to keep wages from going up on these bottom-barrel jobs.

I think they're waiting people out. Business owners know they can coast temporarily while forcing their existing staff to work harder. People have bills to pay; contrary to popular belief, one cannot just sit on one's ass collecting unemployment indefinitely. Welfare in general is not easy to collect, at all. So all businesses have to do is not blink first...

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It feels like a capital strike. With every business raising prices, a business owner can comfortably profit by raising nominal prices and decreasing the quality of service by not staffing up. They all want to recoup losses from 2020.

They know they have a widow of pent up demand and want the resentment spread across all business or ideally to the workers.

You put this far better than I did. 100% agreed.

Thanks, I'm curious if any place with snarky signage even wants to actually attract applicants (and if they would even respond to applicants).

There is a sign at a local Sonic Drive-In that says 'Giving away stimulus checks every 2 weeks apply inside!' That shows the mentality of the owners and operators of these places. You should be grateful we are offering you anything, now take it and all the baggage that goes with it and be happy! We aren't even paying you to work here , it's free money you get for the privilege of being shit upon daily!

That Sonic stays empty as no one goes there anymore, because they literally have TWO employees inside. One to cook and one to take orders/prep. They no longer use the drive-up kiosks. 2 employees. Who in their right mind would work for such a shitty place, when they all pay the same anyway and all are hiring.

I've been at a company with only 2 people left and I was the one running service calls- making the money. One day I woke up and realized I didn't need the company, they needed me. So I left to work for myself and my boss (the owner) asked me what he was supposed to do now. As if I could ask the same of him had they fired me. I'm so tired of the power imbalance.

In a real free market we'd see a wage increase as companies compete with each other for the few people left willing to work for next to nothing. Instead they all pay as low as possible, never full-time, and have random shifts/days worked so they cant find another job.

This all smells of collusion without colluding. They all want to wait it out so they can get back to taking advantage of the helpless.

> By refusing to fill positions

I think it's less about refusing to fill positions and more about refusing to fix hiring practices that discriminate against all but the most formulaically ideal candidate.

People who've paid for past transgressions need jobs. So do first time job seekers, people over 40, people with no credit and people living in the 'wrong' zip-code.

Stop whining and hire them for the jobs they can fill.

I find it pretty preposterous that you would think local small businesses are the ones conspiring with any significant political power, cash reserves, and lobbying objectives

For small businesses to pay more, they have to raise prices, if prices rise significantly more than the prices which large corporations charge, then the small businesses get less sales until they go out of business.

So no, the small businesses probably aren't conspiring, but they are likely riding in the wake of the large corporations (having to pay workers less to offer the similar prices to remain competitive towards shoppers).

local businesses aren't orchestrating the actions of large businesses but they definitely take opportunities to talk explicitly to reporters and put up signage.

The idea is business owners are acting in concert to protect their interests.

And the local community business leaders are happy to help steer reporters to the business owners who toe whatever position they've decided is in the best interests of the local business community.

> For small businesses to pay more, they have to raise prices,

And for them to hire employees who can afford the skyrocketing housing costs, they would have to pay more. Possibly much more.

It's puzzling that many small biz owners don't seem to grasp this bit of economics. At least they give no sign.

I know they can't fix this bit of reality, but they seem clueless about it.

> For small businesses to pay more, they have to raise prices

Only if they insist on maintaining the same profit margin. As demonstrated by the massive wealth transfer that happened during the pandemic, most businesses aren't hurting.

Many small businesses have gone out of business.

They are not conspiring. It just makes a lot of sense to keep operating under-staffed (your labor costs are now a fraction of what they were) as long as the revenue keeps rolling in, using "labor shortage" as an excuse to customers for why quality has gone down, and to employees for why they need to work overtime. A lot of it is also PPP loan fraud - PPP loan forgiveness terms let you weasel out of actually re-hiring staff as long as you make and document some effort at trying to hire (https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/coronavirus/rules-for-rehiri... I assume the rules are similar for second draw). Also, why would you hire someone at what you believe is an "unreasonably" high wage right now, given that you believe that wages will go back down in the near future? If I was running a small business in the US with employees right now, I would be doing the same, no conspiracy necessary.

Who said they all sat down at a secret meeting and said "okay boys, so here's what we're gonna do..."?

Why do you find it preposterous that people with the same problem and the same motivation act the same way?

Also: these folks certainly do talk to each other. At the golf course, the chamber of commerce, on social media...

I think you're giving them too much credit for having a strategy to suppress wages and get media attention. It's just run of the mill complaining and political ranting. If you happen to own a public-facing business, congrats, you now have a soapbox. There is no minimum qualification to be a "business owner". They're just normal people living their lives, and like any of us, span the range from entitled trustees to self-bootstrapped; from centrist people-pleaser to political nutter.

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