“Our rural business is offering minimum wage to pick fruit while it’s in season. Why won’t any unemployed people move out here for a few months work? Lazy bludgers”
Have any of you tried to run a business and hire people? It’s extremely hard to make a business profitable. Small business owners (which are the majority of business owners) don’t have infinite money to give their employees.
Yes, I have. And yes, labor is expensive. Running a small business is hard, and not always profitable. You should do it if you are passionate about the work, and can do it better than the big corporations. If you depend on cheap labor for survival, you're going to fail, and you should fail. Your larger competitors can afford to operate on smaller margins by doing larger volume. Beating them on price and margin is a losing battle every time. Exploiting desperate employees is not a business model, it's just opportunism.
If you can't afford to pay the people doing all the actual work then your business is a failure. Don't use people for your own benefits. Those people need to support themselves just as much as you do. If you can't handle the task of making a business profitable while still paying a fair wage maybe you just aren't cutout for this market and should start apply for a job you are suited to.
the cost of labor has gone up, because the worker needs more money to support a home. Companies who complain just don’t want to pay full price. If a drought increases the price of wheat, Kellogg’s still has to pay the higher wheat cost because the price stays fixed (adjusted daily) across a regulated market, labor just lacks the same protections and lobbying that things like wheat, beef and dairy get
Most employers might be small business owners, but that doesn't mean at all that they provide the most jobs.
One reason why small business owners have such a hard time generating a profit is that big companies undercut prices to destroy smaller local businesses.
So we are kinda in the same boat here and shouldn't be at each others throat.
I have, and do. When the labor market started to go sideways, my solution was to fire my employees and rehire them as independent contractors. Now I have no employees, no insurance issues, no payroll issues, no nothing. The savings for me has been great, and this has enabled me to pay them more. They have to deal with their own taxes now, and some HAVE had issues because they’re spending Uncle Sam’s money right when they get it, but they learn to sock it away or make quarterly payments after messing that up once or twice. Pay less, get lower quality help. Period.
They may be getting paid more but what about benefits? Do you still give them vacation time, health insurance, paid holidays? When I was independent, I didn't get any of that and on top of that I had to pay for general liability insurance.
Between all the extra costs, lack of benefits, and paying taxes, I found a new job much more profitable.
The answer is most likely no. These threads tend to attract and are made by younger people who are likely struggling and have a bleak outlook on their future.
Unfortunately the answer isn’t “just pay more”. Because it causes further inflation if production doesn’t keep up with demand.
The deeper answer is looking at what is causing everything to be so damn expensive and building policy around it to create a better incentives structure. E.g. as a society, why do we value Influencers and Wall Street traders than teachers, nurses, and farmers?
Why are we powerless against lobbying and controlling our policies?
Why is our government not functional for us and is only two parties?
There’s many more questions that could help solve some of our deeper problems. Until then, even if we increase pay, our quality of life will continue to dwindle.