Hotels having trouble hiring workers: Low jobless rate here (San Antonio) cuts into workforce

One thing I mention when I talk about labor markets is how workers will leave one occupation if the wage rises for another, implying cross industry competition for workers.

This article was by Madison Iszler of The Express-News. I don't see it online anywhere right now. You might need an email subscription to read it. If a link becomes available, I will add it.


Excerpts:

"With San Antonio’s unemployment rate hitting historic lows, hoteliers in the city’s $15.2 billion tourism industry are struggling to find housekeepers, dishwashers and waiters.

It’s never been easy recruiting for jobs that involve hard work and low pay, but the crunch is reaching new levels of pain.

“I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I think it’s the worst we’ve ever seen it,” said Avinash Bhakta, president of ABH Hospitality Management, a local firm that manages several Candle-wood Suites, Staybridge Suites and other hotels. “There are plenty of positions that are open — there aren’t enough workers.

“It’s hard to get people.”

To attract the entry-level workers they need, companies are forced to raise wages and change hiring practices. ABH, for example, is bringing on more part-time workers and relying on temp agencies for help with staffing — a departure from years past.

Hotel housekeepers, Bhakta noted, have seen their wages jump by $3 to $4 an hour locally over the past few years. ABH also provides insurance and health benefits for full-time employees.

Low-level positions typically pay $10 to $14 an hour, depending on the hotel’s location, Bhakta said.

In a humming economy, hotel operators aren’t just competing with each other, said Ed McClure, CEO of Boerne-based Phoenix Hospitality Group, which recently opened the Bevy hotel in Boerne. They’re also up against construction firms, retail stores and health care organizations hungry for the same entry-level workers."

"The national unemployment rate fell to 3.7 percent in June — still higher than Texas’ 3.4 percent and San Antonio’s 3 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas."

"While hotels are paying more to lure workers, compensation in the industry had been gradually climbing for years.

The average weekly wage for employees at San Antonio-area hotels and motels was $553 in the fourth quarter of 2018, up from $477 in 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it’s still far below $932, the average among all local private-sector employers during the same period."

"The median hourly wage was $10.44 for hotel desk clerks and $10.12 for maids in the area as of last May, according to BLS data. It rose to $10.55 for cashiers and $11.62 for retail salespeople."

"But attracting workers doesn’t come down to offering higher pay alone. Employees care about a company’s culture, said Tom Cannon, a professor of marketing, tourism and law at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Businesses also have to provide more incentives, such as tuition reimbursement, to attract and retain staff.

“Any employer, especially in the hospitality industry, needs to be thinking about their employees as investments in the future of their business,” Cannon said.

Along with high turnover, hotels are grappling with applicants who seem to drop off the map. Bhakta said job seekers who make it past the interviews and receive job offers frequently never show up for work."

Maybe machines might not take your job but they could decide if you get a promotion

See Walmart Turns to VR to Pick Middle Managers: Retailer using virtual reality headsets to gauge workers’ potential and skill level, help determine promotions and pay cuts by Sarah Nassauer and Chip Cutter of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"When some Walmart Inc. WMT -0.08% store workers want to apply for a higher-paying management role, the company fits them with a $250 virtual reality headset to see if they are the right candidate for the job.

The country’s largest private employer is using a VR skills assessment as part of the selection process to find new middle managers, watching how workers respond in virtual reality to an angry shopper, a messy aisle or an underperforming worker.

VR training is becoming more common in a variety of industries to educate a large number of workers quickly or assess the technical ability of high-skilled workers like electricians or pilots. But Walmart’s use of the technology to gauge a worker’s strengths, weaknesses and potential is significant because it pushes VR evaluation out to a massive hourly workforce and in some cases helps determine who gets raises and who gets demoted."

"Walmart executives hope the technology will limit bias inherent in many traditional hiring decisions, increase diversity and reduce turnover among its 1.5 million U.S. employees"

"Walmart’s use of VR reflects broader efforts by employers to quickly, but fairly gauge workers’ abilities as jobs change due to automation and other factors"

"As Walmart begins to use VR to evaluate workers, it can use the data to identify how certain traits correlate with performance"

"Walmart wanted to understand how candidates respond when they have to prioritize different work or how they communicate with co-workers in times of conflict"

"scores are based on how workers answer questions in VR."

"Strivr and Walmart are moving toward integrating a worker’s body movement and attention data"

"The use of body movement data to predict personality and potential could have pitfalls if workers aren’t given other ways to prove their worth, say some training experts."

The importance of imports of capital and intermediate goods to the U.S. economy

See The importance of imports: Import tariffs, imports of production inputs, and domestic investment from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 

"U.S. trade policy continues to change, with rising tariffs on imports of capital goods and intermediate inputs from China and other countries. But how important are these types of imports for the U.S. economy, especially compared with total U.S. imports? As usual, FRED can help answer our question: The graph above plots the share of capital and intermediate inputs in aggregate U.S. imports over the period 1999-2019.

As the graph shows, the share is not small. In fact, it’s the majority of total imports, ranging from 46% to 61% over this period, with an average well above 50%. Because these imports play an important role for the domestic production of U.S. goods, one would expect that raising tariffs on these goods would have a negative impact on domestic production.

Again, FRED sheds some light on the question: The graph below shows that imported capital goods make up a substantial fraction of aggregate investment, ranging from a bit under 12% to almost 18% for 1999-2019. In particular, the share of imported capital goods in gross fixed capital formation has been growing over the past two decades: Between the 2001 recession and the Great Recession, it was in the 12% to 14% range; after the Great Recession, the values were largely above 16%.



"U.S. trade policy continues to change, with rising tariffs on imports of capital goods and intermediate inputs from China and other countries. But how important are these types of imports for the U.S. economy, especially compared with total U.S. imports? As usual, FRED can help answer our question: The graph above plots the share of capital and intermediate inputs in aggregate U.S. imports over the period 1999-2019.

As the graph shows, the share is not small. In fact, it’s the majority of total imports, ranging from 46% to 61% over this period, with an average well above 50%. Because these imports play an important role for the domestic production of U.S. goods, one would expect that raising tariffs on these goods would have a negative impact on domestic production.

Again, FRED sheds some light on the question: The graph below shows that imported capital goods make up a substantial fraction of aggregate investment, ranging from a bit under 12% to almost 18% for 1999-2019. In particular, the share of imported capital goods in gross fixed capital formation has been growing over the past two decades: Between the 2001 recession and the Great Recession, it was in the 12% to 14% range; after the Great Recession, the values were largely above 16%.




These specific imports comprise a significant portion of both total U.S. imports and domestic investment, which suggests that the ongoing changes to U.S. trade policy might have a negative impact on firms that rely on these capital goods and inputs to conduct their productive activities. In particular, tariffs on capital goods might negatively affect aggregate U.S. investment and, thus, aggregate output."