Retail workers quitting in droves, corporate America may soon run out of slaves

[reagansghost]

Retail workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work: 'My life isn't worth a dead-end

Source: Washington Post

Retail workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work: ‘My life isn’t worth a dead-end job’

Some 649,000 employees gave notice in April, the sector’s largest one-month exodus in over 20 years, a reflection of pandemic-era strains and a strengthening job market. Retail workers, drained from the pandemic and empowered by a strengthening job market, are leaving jobs like never before.

Americans are ditching their jobs by the millions, and retail is leading the way with the largest increase in resignations of any sector. Some 649,000 retail workers put in their notice in April, the industry’s largest one-month exodus since the Labor Department began tracking such data more than 20 years ago.

Some are finding less stressful positions at insurance agencies, marijuana dispensaries, banks and local governments, where their customer service skills are rewarded with higher wages and better benefits. Others are going back to school to learn new trades, or waiting until they are able to secure reliable child care.

“It was a really dismal time, and it made me realize this isn’t worth it,” said 23-year-old Aislinn Potts of Murfreesboro, Tenn., who left her $11-an-hour job as an aquatic specialist at a national pet chain in April to focus on writing and art. “My life isn’t worth a dead-end job.”

In interviews with more than a dozen retail workers who recently left their jobs, nearly all said the pandemic introduced new strains to already challenging work: longer hours, understaffed stores, unruly customers and even pay cuts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...quitting-jobs/

...every store clerk you see while out shopping looks like a zombie.....and very few of them know anything about the business that's paying them that minimum wage. go to Safeway and ask an employee where the ketchup is sometime

[Hawkeye10]

Teaching people that work is oppression and that folks should sit home waiting for a check from the government is really really stupid.

Buckle Up.

[Jack]

Better Pay is an incentive.

[Iolo/Penderyn]

Teaching people that work is oppression and that folks should sit home waiting for a check from the government is really really stupid.

Buckle Up.

Selling your time to a crook is like any other way of dealing with a crook. By whatever way possible, they are best avoided! These buggers are just trying to make you live on grass so that they can make more money.

[SmarterthanYou]

Better Pay is an incentive.

is stocking food shelves or working a cash register a job that should be paid the same as the computer chip maker in a clean room????

[ThatOwlWoman]

Better Pay is an incentive.

Yep. We've been bombarded by a litany of whining from restaurant managers and store managers on the local news the last few months, all bitching about how they can't hire new ppl and blaming the expanded unemployment benefits. Oddly enough though, many restaurants in town have plenty of staff. Why's that? Because they pay better than the ones who can't seem to find anyone. Kids at school who work PT pass around tips on where the best pay is.

[Jack]

Yep. We've been bombarded by a litany of whining from restaurant managers and store managers on the local news the last few months, all bitching about how they can't hire new ppl and blaming the expanded unemployment benefits. Oddly enough though, many restaurants in town have plenty of staff. Why's that? Because they pay better than the ones who can't seem to find anyone. Kids at school who work PT pass around tips on where the best pay is.

[Cypress]

Yep. We've been bombarded by a litany of whining from restaurant managers and store managers on the local news the last few months, all bitching about how they can't hire new ppl and blaming the expanded unemployment benefits. Oddly enough though, many restaurants in town have plenty of staff. Why's that? Because they pay better than the ones who can't seem to find anyone. Kids at school who work PT pass around tips on where the best pay is.

I think most of us are unsurprised that there is ultimately a cost to treating people like dirt and paying them far less than a living wage.

Robber baron capitalists have held sway in this country for a long time, and I have my doubts many of them will reconsider how they treated and paid employees.

[Jack]

is stocking food shelves or working a cash register a job that should be paid the same as the computer chip maker in a clean room????

No.

[ThatOwlWoman]

I think most of us are unsurprised that there is ultimately a cost to treating people like dirt and paying them far less than a living wage.

Robber baron capitalists have held sway in this country for a long time, and I have my doubts many of them will reconsider how they treated and paid employees.

They've learned that (R)s and their not-so-bright followers believe that employers should be treated like demi-gods and that employees should consider themselves lucky to have a job, any job. The tables are turned now that there is a worker shortage.

Good. *That* is what drives higher wages and decent benefits.

[cancel2 2022]

Better Pay is an incentive.

Yeh do that, inflation is starting to take off and that should cause hyperinflation soon enough!

[Jarod]

Retail workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work: 'My life isn't worth a dead-end

Source: Washington Post

Retail workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work: ‘My life isn’t worth a dead-end job’

Some 649,000 employees gave notice in April, the sector’s largest one-month exodus in over 20 years, a reflection of pandemic-era strains and a strengthening job market. Retail workers, drained from the pandemic and empowered by a strengthening job market, are leaving jobs like never before.

Americans are ditching their jobs by the millions, and retail is leading the way with the largest increase in resignations of any sector. Some 649,000 retail workers put in their notice in April, the industry’s largest one-month exodus since the Labor Department began tracking such data more than 20 years ago.

Some are finding less stressful positions at insurance agencies, marijuana dispensaries, banks and local governments, where their customer service skills are rewarded with higher wages and better benefits. Others are going back to school to learn new trades, or waiting until they are able to secure reliable child care.

“It was a really dismal time, and it made me realize this isn’t worth it,” said 23-year-old Aislinn Potts of Murfreesboro, Tenn., who left her $11-an-hour job as an aquatic specialist at a national pet chain in April to focus on writing and art. “My life isn’t worth a dead-end job.”

In interviews with more than a dozen retail workers who recently left their jobs, nearly all said the pandemic introduced new strains to already challenging work: longer hours, understaffed stores, unruly customers and even pay cuts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...quitting-jobs/

...every store clerk you see while out shopping looks like a zombie.....and very few of them know anything about the business that's paying them that minimum wage. go to Safeway and ask an employee where the ketchup is sometime

Good, maybe we won’t need a minimum wage hike if enough workers demand more.

[Cypress]

They've learned that (R)s and their not-so-bright followers believe that employers should be treated like demi-gods and that employees should consider themselves lucky to have a job, any job. The tables are turned now that there is a worker shortage.

Good. *That* is what drives higher wages and decent benefits.

Rightwing robber baron capitalists in USA have long whined that raising the minimum wage will kill their businesses.

Let them fail. And incentivize and bring in restaurant and retail businesses owners from Norway, New Zealand, Germany, and France to run our restaurants. They figured out how to run a business in a high minimum wage environment.

[cawacko]

I'll speak from a San Francisco perspective since its often in the news. Many restaurant owners have been interviewed and talk about worker pay. These people generally like to make it clear they are politically progressive but then get into the economic realities of running a restaurant and all that it entails (including the difficulty of paying workers higher salaries).

So either these folks are lying about being progressive and are really right-wing robber barons or maybe they shouldn't get into the restaurant business unless they are already rich/wealthy and shouldn't run it to make a profit?

[Jack]

Yeh do that, inflation is starting to take off and that should cause hyperinflation.

I remember when I could buy a pound of bacon for under a dollar.