Why restaurants can’t find workers (with restaurateur Mark Bucher)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

DC restaurateur Mark Bucher explains what’s behind the “labor” shortage (hint: it’s the wages), the role that restaurant owners need to play in stopping the “churn and burn” model of low-wage workers, and the future of the restaurant industry post-Covid. Mark Bucher is the co-owner of Medium Rare, a decade-old steakhouse with three locations in D.C., Arlington, and Bethesda. During the pandemic, he established “Feed the Fridge”, a project that places refrigerators around the DC metro area and pays local restaurants to fill them with fresh meals daily. Twitter: @MediumRareDC DC restaurateur: There’s no staffing crisis. There’s a wage crisis. https://wtop.com/business-finance/2021/07/dc-restauranteur-theres-no-staffing-crisis-theres-a-wage-crisis/ Feed the Fridge: https://feedthefridge.org/ Minimum wage hike boosts customer experience: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/08/minimum-wage-hike-boosts-customer-experience Restaurant industry unharmed by modest minimum wage hikes: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2016/01/restaurant-industry-unharmed-modest-minimum-wage-hikes Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	If there's one thing we know about the job market during the COVID pandemic is that it's
0:13.8	hard to really know anything about the job market.
0:17.7	For the past year and a half, this has been perhaps the weirdest economy in US history.
0:24.8	For example, the unemployment rate is actually relatively low, falling from 5.4% to 5.2% in
0:32.3	August.
0:33.3	And yet, jobless claims are still relatively high.
0:37.7	The leisure and hospitality industry is particularly difficult to get a handle on.
0:43.3	From February through July, the industry added 2.1 million jobs.
0:48.0	That's half of all US jobs added over the period.
0:52.5	And yet, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, as leisure and hospitality employment, is
0:57.6	still 10% below where it was in February 2020, and far higher than the background unemployment
1:05.1	rate.
1:06.1	And yet, even with this relatively high level of unemployment in the industry, restaurant
1:10.6	owners are loudly complaining about a so-called labor shortage as they struggle to staff
1:16.1	up in this, I don't know what you want to call it, the pre-post-pandemic economy.
1:21.7	And so to get a more hands-on perspective about what's really happening in the restaurant
1:26.3	industry, I look forward to talking with Mark Buker, a veteran Washington DC area restaurateur.
1:40.3	My name is Mark Buker and I am the co-founder of Medium Rare Restaurants and the founder
1:46.0	of Feed the French.
1:47.5	Thank you for coming on to the podcast, Mark.
1:50.3	We talk a lot about the restaurant industry, but of course, none of us are actually in
1:57.0	it.
	...

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