Thursday, April 11, 2024

Beating minimum wages by outsourcing the jobs

 

Yesterday we spoke about how California's very high minimum wage for restaurant and fast-food workers was driving some of those establishments out of business.  It seems a New York restaurant chain has found an alternative - and much cheaper - solution.


A new restaurant chain in New York City is outsourcing staff to the Philippines, using screens with hostesses on Zoom calls instead of in-person employees to greet customers and help with check-out.

The shops — which specialize in fried chicken and ramen — are taking advantage of the massive wealth gap between New York City, where the minimum wage is $16 per hour and a Southeast Asian nation where hourly pay is closer to $3.75.

But when customers check out at Sansan Chicken, Sansan Ramen, or Yaso Kitchen — with locations in Manhattan, Queens, and Jersey City — they’re still prompted to add a tip of up to 18% on top of their bill.

. . .

The dynamics of the operation seem to be cloaked in secrecy. It’s not clear if the hostesses work for the restaurant or a third-party company that hires them out.

It’s also not clear who owns the restaurants, and how much the hostesses are getting paid.

The Post could not reach the businesses’ owner, and employees would not divulge information about their bosses when a reporter asked.


There's more at the link.

That's certainly a win, cost-wise, for the restaurant chain;  even accounting for the cost of trans-Pacific Internet links and computer hardware, they must be saving well over 50% on staff costs.  It's probably also a win for the staff in the Philippines, who at least have steady employment at a local wage that can support them - although I'm sure they'd prefer to earn closer to the New York City mandated wage and salary scale.  As for the customers?  I'm not sure I'd like to deal solely with a screen for a sit-down meal, as opposed to a live human being.  However, others may think differently about that.

What is certain is that this is yet another nail in the coffin of entry-level jobs, which have traditionally offered first employment to young people starting out to earn a living.  Mandating a minimum wage too high for businesses to afford means they're going to switch to something they can afford, and in this case that means removing several dozen jobs from the local market.  Other restaurants and fast food chains are moving towards robots to prepare the food and take orders for it, with only minimal human staffing to keep the robots supplied with ingredients and periodically clean up the place.  Again, those jobs are lost to the local market, and I don't see them coming back.

One wonders what the millions of illegal migrants streaming across our borders are going to do when they can't find employment, due in part to such jobs no longer being available.  One also wonders what our government - federal, state and local - is going to do to contain the resulting unrest and social upheaval.  Are they blithely going to pay all those migrants enough money to live on, while ignoring the plight of American poor?  At the moment, it certainly looks that way.

There's a thought . . . send your teenagers to Mexico when they graduate high school, and tell them to cross back into the USA on their own two feet, having destroyed their identity documents.  They'll be given a smartphone, a ticket to the destination of their choice, and a pretty significant amount of money, plus free health care and low-cost education.  It may not be fair to those who prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, but your family budget will look a whole lot healthier!

Peter


17 comments:

boron said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Back in the days of the mortgage craziness 8 or 9 years back we were trying to sell our home, AFTER we moved. About 6 months in to paying rent on the new place and our old mortgage (and heat, and electric, and water), I brought up the idea of just sending the key's back to the bank, tell them it's theirs, and take the hit on our credit rating.
Wife said no, give it a few more months, it'll sell...
14 months it took to dump that place. I could have cut-bait and saved a years worth of payments (no small sum!)
I should have played the system and dumped it back on the bank.

Anonymous said...

Sheer brilliance, and I'm sure illegal under some NY law. If not they'll make one up.

Aesop said...

"There's a thought . . . send your teenagers to Mexico when they graduate high school, and tell them to cross back into the USA on their own two feet, having destroyed their identity documents. They'll be given a smartphone, a ticket to the destination of their choice, and a pretty significant amount of money, plus free health care and low-cost education. It may not be fair to those who prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, but your family budget will look a whole lot healthier!"

Why not just kill your kids yourself?
Evidently, "who runs Mexico" was not considered in this suggestion.

The females who do that will be raped by the cartels, addicted to drugs, and sold into slavery as sex workers until they either OD or die of tertiary syphilis.

The males will mostly simply be killed outright as spies or government agents, and a non-zero number will find themselves in the same position as the females, except working face-down.

Worst advice - even tongue-in-cheek - ever printed on the internet in living memory.
Re-think, por favor.

Anonymous said...

No one has gotten a better job after getting "experience" flipping burgers (etc) since the early 2000's, at the very latest. Entry level jobs are an entry into poverty, that's it. It isn't the 70's or 80's anymore. And robots were always going to be cheaper, long-term, than human staff. That was inevitable. Buggy whip makers went out of business as technology advanced, too, and lots of people lost their jobs. Raising the minimum wage is neither the problem, nor the solution. Regardless of the job, 70%+ of people under 40 will not be able to afford a home within their lifetimes, unless something drastically changes. For instance:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/mIE1nHuAvYM

boron said...

"One wonders what the millions of illegal migrants streaming across our borders are going to do when they can't find employment, due in part to such jobs no longer being available."
? Hmm!
become IRS agents?
sorry 'bout that!
Need a 5 minute editing script

boron said...


@ Anonymous
I'm not diagreeing with (not even in the slightest), but there is an awful lot of foreign money (in $dollars) coming into the country (some clean, some dirty) that needs to find a solid investment (U.S. real estate's always a good one).
Please don't forget this deluge of dollars that may be driving (as well as inflation) this market.

Dan said...

The criminals in control of the government don't want to control the social unrest and violence. It's useful to them. Anarchy gives them the excuse to ignore the Constitution and our Rights....even more than they've been ignoring them. Ultimately they want most of us dead.

Anonymous said...

"Welcome to McFanuc's! Press any key to continue..."
rickm

Anonymous said...

I've wondered about the contractor angle on the $20/hr thing. Somewhere between $0 and $20 is a balance point that provides enough money to attract workers but not so much that busineess operation becomes impossible.

So, if Joe's Burgers hires contract labor from John's Rent-A-Human LLC for $10/hr, does that dodge the Kali $20/hr law? Or, what if Joe pays his workers on straight commission

Anonymous said...

Someone get the forceps, nurse ratchet has his panties in a twist again...

Anonymous said...

Starting out at an entry level job is as much about proving you can show-up as anything else. After a couple months of being "on-time every day" for your shift usually brings a raise and promotion, albeit minor. All the same, you'd proven yourself worthy.
THAT is the point to entry level - weed out the people incapable of showing up on the regular.
If you can show up every day, we'll invest and train you to do something useful.
Having hired people - a series of entry-level jobs with no longevity nor advancement is a big red flag on ones resume.
Entry level was never intended to serve as a lifestyle. You shouldn't expect to be able to buy a home without appreciable job skills. Why does a burger flipper think they deserve a white picket fence and 2 Hondas in the driveway in the first place?!?! Theres your problem! That person shares an apartment above a bowling alley with 3 high school buddies? THATs how life works.
Conflating "entry level" with "livable wage" is a communist dog whistle. The two are not the same and were never meant to be, but thanks for revealing the true nature about how some people think! This is the problem with liberals and democrats - everyone is NOT entitled to the same lifestyle if they are not willing to put in the work! Not hours behind the fryer - learn a useful skill that is worth money! Do not expect society to coddle and support you being lazy and ineffectual in life!?
... and there it is again. The participation trophy generation. Damned snowflakes have fucked this whole world up. We tried to warn you....

Anonymous said...

Winner winner chicken dinner
Cloward-Pliven in action.

Anonymous said...

Extrapolate this situation out to secondary, tirtiary,and quarternary effects with me?
What other jobs out there consist of two people talking briefly before something is exchanged?
Shrinks
Lawyers
Doctors
Teachers
... most people cannot fathom what this world is going to look like in 20 years. Literally incapable of imagining something so different from today.
Got an image in your head? Great! Now throw Moores law and AI at that image, tell me what you see?
Still with me?! In 20 years over 50% of the US population will be illiterate brown illegal immigrants, or their children.
Now go!

lynn said...

There is always more than one way to skin a cat.

Will said...

"So, if Joe's Burgers hires contract labor from John's Rent-A-Human LLC for $10/hr, does that dodge the Kali $20/hr law? Or, what if Joe pays his workers on straight commission"

Gig/contractor type work is now illegal in CA. Only full employment is allowed, and congress is working on making gig type employment illegal everywhere in the US.

Anonymous said...

The Eternal Boomer is back