A simple way to lure staff: pay them more.
A gloriously snooty piece in the FT at the weekend bemoaned the trouble US employers are having hiring staff.
The problem, we read, is generous stimulus cheques from the government that have made a $15 an hour job at McDonald’s seem unattractive.
(The writer may not be too familiar with either McDonald’s or $15 an hour.)
“If you give citizens the kind of financial support that allows them to withdraw their labour, many will,” we were informed.
Well, no kidding.
What none of this sort of commentary ever mentions is that one easy way for McDonald’s to make its jobs more appealing would be to offer pay rises.
That might send the cost of burgers up. Also good.
Yesterday JD Wetherspoon’s boss Tim Martin called for a visa scheme for EU workers since he is struggling to recruit staff.
Again, the idea that we are running out of people is absurd. They just need a better incentive to go to jobs they would plainly rather not do.
Employers might have a think about this.
The word “inflation” is racing towards your lips with unerring speed, and yes, we are going to get some, but it doesn’t have to be a crisis.
Much of the commentary fretting about inflation tends to confuse rises in the cost of some goods with house price inflation, which is a separate problem altogether.
If you are young, indebted and have zero chance of getting on the housing ladder in the first place, the old folk moaning about looming inflation must look like people talking a different language, on a different planet.
