Why restaurants in the United States just can’t get the staff

"Essential workers" were "on the front line" and then were fired. Restaurant workers switched to take out/delivery becoming essential workers on the front line, and then many of them got fired. They feel betrayed, good luck getting them to come back. Long covid has also probably taken a lot of them out of the game (current estimates in the USA are 1.5 million if I remember correctly.) So the worker shortage is probably permanent, for all types of jobs, until a decade or so passes and the population creates more workers. No amount of inducement is going to make workers who can't function come back to work. Workers who now don't have to risk their lives for their front line jobs which they felt locked into because who else was hiring at the time now feel free to move to something better, different, but at least less risky than what they had before. The pandemic is not over either, four new variants on the way. So getting out of a job that could turn really risky at any time only seems to make sense. At the very least they probably feel the need to be compensated for the risk.

I worked in a diner prior to and through college, and would take home $800 to $1000 a week. On average, my monthly would come in around $4000 with tips and that little salary you get. A few times a year, I'd make $1000 cash in a single night, such as mothers' day, christmas eve, thanksgiving eve, ...the party holidays and when special events came to town and the store was slammed with customers. It was, what we called, blood money - because you were busier than ever, yet it was great money.

Sometimes I would complain, regardless of how good the money was. Nevertheless, I made almost 60k/year at 19 years old with no experience or marketable skills other than work ethic, a smile, and attention to detail.

While college was fun, I didn't make partying or my social life the most important thing. Earning, saving, and improving myself was the goal. One could say I had my priorities straight - a lesson I learned from my parents, but one that seems so obvious two decades later that I shouldn't have needed my parents to tell me.

Whereas my friends at the time were still living at home, still begging mom and dad (and me) for money, and taking the bus or begging for rides.

Just about anyone can work in a restaurant if they are physically capable, and unless you have a physical or mental disability, you are capable. Perhaps unwilling, lazy, or a bit of a crybaby; either way, unless you're missing a limb, you can work hard in a restaurant, construction, landscaping, and other jobs and make double (or more) the money you earn at McDonalds with the exact same skill set.

This hasn't really changed. You can still get server jobs at great restaurants and make decent money with little marketable skills. Of course the point is to not make a career out of it unless your goal is to own a restaurant one day.

Everyone wants to make $1MM a year and wants to live in a 7-figure house as soon as they finish high school; and some demand that taxpayers carry them to the promise land of "equity" ...when we all have the same capabilities, opportunities, challenges despite varying attributes.

I wouldn't be surprised if a golden age of the restaurant has passed in the US and what we have right now is a massive over supply of restaurants.

If the average restaurant profit margin was 3-6% before the pandemic in a low inflation environment then I can't imagine the average margin is not less than zero at this point. Hard to raise wages if you aren't profitable on a business that doesn't scale.

The restaurant culture is toxic and consumerism is killing it. When I started washing dishes, there was a clear dividing line between coffee shops, restaurants and fast food. Most people had their preferences and stuck with it. Slowly those lines have been blurred as the corporations pretty much have a template for what stores goes in any new shopping center. The people that grew up working in restaurants are used to very similar routines, no matter where you go to work. Long hours sure, but for well managed restaurants, those hours instilled a sense of pride that you will not find in the part-time, in/out, do everything workers that the average chain eatery will hire. The community based restaurants treated good workers as a asset, but the corporations are looking at the bottom line, so all workers are treated like a replaceable liability.

Restaurants are not "essential": No one should work there due to economic pressure. But some ppl, in moments of their lives, are keen on providing such service to others, or basically "do not mind", in other words, are natural at shielding themselves from this specific mental stress and fatigue. Being a "salary individual" in restaurants, as far as my experience goes, namely thru other ppl than me, or what I can understand from what I "see", seems to be often a source of heavy stress and fatigue. I would like to go to restaurants where _no_ employees work there because of some economic pressure and only because they are _really ok_ with it.

"Restaurants no longer entitled to unsustainably cheap labor"

There is a family Thai restaurant I'm connected with that faces these problems and others mentioned here in the comments.

An additional complication for the industry is the price of food. In order to be an authentic Thai restaurant, much of the ingredients are ordered from Thailand. Over the past few years prices have doubled for these imported ingredients.

Great replies. Related: the Great Resignation has created the equivalent of the economics post-Black-Death where those that remain are far more empowered by their smaller numbers and can demand higher pay. Restaurants aren't willing to pay so they have a shortage. Increase pay and the problem will eventually go away.