This Is Why Your Hourly Workers Aren’t Coming Back

“It’s a nightmare,” says a chief operating officer of a popular sit-down restaurant with a thick menu. Exasperation seeped through our 8 a.m. Zoom call. “I’m dealing with restaurants that I have to close because we don’t have enough staff.” Many industries are feeling the pain of The Great Resignation, but people working in traditionally deskless jobs (such as food service and gig workers) consistently top the quitting leaderboard. About 750,000 leisure and hospitality workers are dropping out every month, according to this year’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. What gives? When asked this question, most will say they need to be paid more, which makes sense. Rising costs are catastrophic in America today. Workers now need to make $42 an hour in order to spend the recommended quarter of their income on an average one-bedroom apartment (in June 2021, this amount was $1,711). Meanwhile, the average hourly wage for restaurant workers is $11.52. Read more at Fast Company.