Labor shortages — As Emmett goes, so goes Idaho

Almost every town in Idaho has a restaurant or retail store that can’t find enough employees right now. The Idaho Business Review started compiling locations around the state where this is happening and found that few communities are immune.

Take Emmett, where the temporary closure of Subway brought about a lengthy social media discussion of labor shortages on one of the town’s most popular Facebook pages.

On Sunday morning, May 3, an Emmett resident posted to the “Ask Emmett, Idaho” Facebook group to ask whether Subway was closed: “Is subway open today? There was a sign on it yesterday when I stopped by.”

A Subway employee posted back: “No, we aren’t opening today or tomorrow — not enough people to work.” During the ensuing two-day 100-plus post discussion, this employee also disclosed that “we need nighttime people, and if they have school, it makes it hard.”

Two major themes developed in the posts. The first was the predictable comment that the supplemental federal unemployment benefit was to blame for keeping lazy workers home.

Candi Witzel: “So does everyone in Emmett have a job?”

Tina Lohr: “Nope, they don’t want to go back to work when they are getting paid to sit at home.”

Bob Gorham: “Right now, we have a lot of unemployed and disincentivized people. Take the unemployment bonus COVID relief BS away and make unemployment (in general) harder to obtain. The issue might just go away pretty quickly.”

Kailey Beaman: “I’m late to the party, but I was on unemployment last year … there’s still a lot of people on it, but Idaho Department of Labor doesn’t want to pay anyone at all. People are starting to get that. I can’t say why there aren’t more people working now, but I can say that I understand the people who used to be self-employed making bank, but are now unemployed, refusing to take a job that pays barely more than minimum wage. You definitely won’t have people who used to make $20-plus an hour accepting a job at freaking Subway or McDonald’s.”

Betty Griffith: “There are job openings everywhere. I am sure almost every industry is short-handed.”

The second theme was a living wage.

Candy Hopkins: “Do you think that perhaps employers should offer a living wage? With rents exceeding what people clear on a paycheck, no one can afford to work for less than $10 to $15 per hour. If you want to get employees, you need to pay what a person can live on.”

Jean Nutile: “The purchasing power of the minimum wage has been eroding since the 1960s. Don’t know what the solution is, but there is something wrong when people can make more on unemployment than they can working. And yes, you can argue that these people need to get an education and get better paying jobs but how can they ever afford to in this day and age? And who will do our waitressing, bar tending, etc.?”

Various posters talked about wages around town: $8/hour at Subway, $11/hour at McDonalds; $15/hour or more for a job “over the hill” in Meridian or Caldwell. Several posted about places trying to hire right now around the area with better pay and benefits, such as D. L. Evans Bank in Emmett, which will train tellers, and the Triangle Restaurant in Sweet.

The last post in the discussion wondered where all the workers were who were sitting at home collecting unemployment: “I’m not sure where this mob of unemployed bums are. Maybe in some other state? The reality is that Idaho’s unemployment rate was 3.2% at the end of last month and it’s likely to drop again when the official number for April is announced…Since October, Idaho’s unemployment rate dropped 1.2% between October and March. That’s a lot. Our numbers are almost back to where they were before COVID.”

No one in this Facebook discussion brought up other factors driving people away from new employment, like lack of childcare or eldercare, needing to stay home with children attending school remotely or the fear of infection in a service job. Nor did anyone mention the long-term trend of the shrinking work force.

Only one poster brought up that unemployment benefits expire. Normal unemployment compensation lasts six months, although benefits are sometimes extended during economic downturns. During the recession that started in 2008, unemployment benefits were extended by 73 weeks. Extensions due to the pandemic have been extended 13 weeks or expire on Sept. 6, whichever is sooner.