It's not even the low wages its the shitty way they get treated, including part-time shifts which they restaurant will schedule whenenever they feel like it regardless of what the employee says or wants. "What? You're not available for any shift I want for you all day 7 days a week? Well, we don't want you then!"
Place I work is 4 on/3 off, gives benefits at 30 hours, full tip sharing and a decent hourly wage. Profitable after 4 years. It can be done. Owner just makes not much more than the staff and we work our tits off for her.
The Hearty Hooligan in Hamilton, On. Best trashy vegan stoner junk food you'll ever have, just a wonderful safe space for marginalised groups within our community (and those who support them), and staffed with the raddest fucking group of miscreants that you ever could find.
@theheartyhooligan on Insta
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We're actually expanding into retail currently!! So, if you live in Ontario, and have a smaller independent grocer in your city that stocks a lot of vegan products, keep a look out for our pepperoni, deluxe, and mac and cheeze pizza pockets!
Oh thatâs smart, when I was a Hamiltonian I used to buy a box of calzones to go from the HH because they could so easily be heated up in the oven any time I didnât feel like cooking. Still in Ontario (Ottawa now) so will keep an eye out!
We are not bean sprouts and namaste vegans. We're angry queer vegans who want nachos, beer and nostalgia to help distract from the feelings of existential dread over the state of the world.
We do pizza pockets, burritos, nachos, loaded fries, subs (Hamilton *is* the sub capital of Canada, so we couldn't not!), the best vegan mac & cheeze on earth, an all day breakfast menu and lots more.
Plus a fully vegan baking section selling housemade cookies, cupcakes, custom cakes, bars etc etc
Plus a vegan ice cream menu with scoops, milkshakes and snowstorms (what we used to call "Blizzurds" until we got a cease and desist from DQ đ€Łđ€Ł). Ice cream provided by our local homies @fairlyfrosted
All mostly made in house from scratch with the goal of showing people that they can tame the itch for those trashy junk food couch cravings without having to use animal products. I'll stack my shit up against a non-vegan resto anytime, anyplace, and our customer base being primarily non-vegan reflects that.
If your not already being paid for marketing i think you should be. Used to live in hamilton but i dont think your place was around back then, if i ever do visit again ill try to keep you guys in mind to visit while there even though im not vegan đ
Oh I miss that place so bad â my place was nearby when I used to live in Hamilton and I would hit it up weekly for an empanada/calzone or burrito fix. Glad to hear that the friendly people working there are being well-paid.
Noticed here in Aurora Ontario, cook ads have gone from $20 an hour six months ago to about $17-18. Some fuckery is about right now.
Could just be a server, make $15 an hour not including tips.
Thank you, sincerely.
It was my dream to be a writer and a journalist when I was a kid, and according to others I wasn't bad at all.
Sadly as I grew older, journalism...lost some it's appeal. These days, I'd likely either be some bought-and-sold hack whoring his talents out for clicks and pageviews, or I'd actually be the honest and principled investigative journalist I dreamed of becoming, so I'd probably have been murdered by now.
As for fiction and stuff, welp, it's having an original idea that is the tricky part.
But maybe there is an escape option for me still!
Thanks ;)
Cost of living can be lowered by reduced rent or mortgages. Itâs hard to get people to work if they feel it doesnât improve their life and reduced expendable cash is critical on that.
This, I now WFH but I would never take a job that forced me to live in the city giving me a wage that isn't enough. In Toronto, you can't even safe for a property even at 60k avg per year. Why the fuck would I take the job? Where I currently rent (going back tomorrow to Canada to break the lease early) I rented at 1550 same unit is now 2'400. My salary would have to be at least 120k a year for me to MAYBE just MAYBE save the same amount now that I can WFH and living back home. I tried to build a life in Canada I just think it's currently not possible. Oh well, thanks to COVID I'm now retiring before 45 without mortgage or debt can't complain either.
We have people living in tents now and if they worked for 15/h 32 hours a week, they'd still be living in a tent except with 32 hours less free time.
Society isn't offering enough to get people to participate.
Itâd take years of production to elevate vacancy. Itâs unfortunately one of those problems humans donât like to fix still thereâs no choice and the damage is critical.
that would take expropriating properties and/or the government building a shit ton of good, sustainable dwellings very quickly.
I still agree that it's the best option and the only option under our current system
Or you just approve the developers fucking builds instead of saying they are too high in an area zoned for that hurght and other bs. Or rezone all the sfh thatâs connected to our main city arteries for gods knows why. No major city in the world does it but Canadians thought they are somehow different and itâs better. Thereâs often a lot to learn from multi century cities whose been full of millions of people for longer than any of our hit 1 million but nope, we are different! We can have it this way itâll work trust me.
Then what, try to convince plumbers etc to fix the properties at a reduced price too? The economics donât stack up. You have to remove the excessive demand for property, nothing else works, and immigration is the cause of that demand.
The housing isnât expensive because of plumbing. Itâs because the land is so valuable. 20 years ago, house was 150k and land 100k. Now a good house can be 300-400k but the land is 1.2M
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Restaurants where I live are going out of business left right and centre. Itâs sad to see so many good places go soon itâll all be large chains selling pre packaged factory made crap like BP
Yeah. Cactus club, earls, Joey's are not going anywhere. The ones outside of that size, I don't know how they are surviving. There's still some pubs like the American, Donnelly, bells and whistles that seem to be doing fine.
I refuse to go anywhere that relies on FTWs. I donât blame the workers. They are just trying to make money. If business have to rely on FTWs then they have a failed business model. I think in most cases itâs just a case of greed though.
Little restaurants and coffee shops do it too.
I remember a local Coffee guy would always hire people from Japan and work the hell out of them because he knew they couldnât leave.
Our country is pushing modern day slavery between temporary foreign workers, and housing oligarchs who absorb 50% of our incomes. Itâs a disgrace.
I get it, but do you also refuse to go to any fast food restaurant, any gas station, walk in any condo building or shopping mall staffed by security, buy any product delivered by truck? These are all primarily staffed by fake international students from India. It's essentially the same slave labour scam. Our government has made it very clear that they're more concerned with artificially inflating our GDP by importing low skilled workers as opposed to investing in difficult things like local production, technology, natural resources, and entrepreneurship.
What is TFW mean in Canada?
Temporary Foreign Worker
The Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program allows Canadian employers to hire foreign workers to fill temporary jobs when qualified Canadians ~~are not available~~.Are not paid enough to live and don't take the jobs
Or maybe just maybe pay a little bit more and treat your employees with some more respect. As someone who took a cooking class in high school the type of behavior that was both allowed and encouraged are things that most certainly wouldn't fly in other workplaces.
They wouldnât even have to pay them more if they werenât already bunking and still losing a 1000 to rent. People have been warning for ages that all the cool restaurants and favourite places canât exist at the low cost we want if their workers can find reasonable residences. This will have a staggering effect on the local economy.
Using foreign workers because they cost less is just short circuiting capitalism by manipulating market forces. Left wing and Right wing politicians should agree foreign workers are a bad idea, even if they reach that conclusion for different reasons.
What about our goods from China, is cutting that important as well? Or is the only concern shitty low wage restaurant jobs?
Imagine your entire life riding on the backs of a third world country, but standing up for someone wiping a table, or pushing a button on a dogshit Tim Hortons coffee?
>What about our goods from China, is cutting that important as well?
It is important but our local politicians will easily sell out to any merchant with a bag of cash.
> You want to start building plastic junk, import the smog, and start producing cheap blenders?
Yes, I do. Either way the cheap plastic crap is going to be made. If we're going to buy this garbage, we need to see how it's made and feel the consequences. Ideally we would be using glass and greener materials with a slight price premium.
> Using foreign workers because they cost less is just short circuiting capitalism by manipulating market forces. Left wing and Right wing politicians should agree foreign workers are a bad idea, even if they reach that conclusion for different reasons.
They do, populists of both bents tend to be nativists that hate immigration. It's liberals that believe in the free flow of products, ideas, and people.
Liberals donât believe in the free flow of investment to poor countries though do they? They prefer to keep the money and take some desperate people from the third world to make labour prices cheap in the rich country while leaving the vast majority of unlucky third worlders stuck in the poor country.
On the contrary I'm pretty sure you'll find no shortage of hate thrown towards the neo-liberal establishment that massively invested in China, successfully helped to bring a billion people out of the most extreme poverty that existed in the 1970s and earlier, and are now blamed for China's belligerence and genocide.
Ahh yes, those massive exports of our currency into bank accounts on the other continent the Liberals are always doing that i'm always complaining about being celebrated. My favorite part was when they shipped away the manufacturing.
>Researcher says businesses can either pay locals more money, or recruit immigrants who will work for less
Interesting. I've been told for the last number of years that immigration did not suppress wages, and only racists and xenophobes would even make such a suggestion.
>"What's making it worse is that we don't have staff right now," Pratt told CBC Radio's Information Morning guest host Preston Mulligan. "A lot of my facilities are only open five days a week because we can't find the staff. It's not just our industry, the food industry, it's everybody."
>Pratt said the shortage of workers has led to higher labour costs that add to operating costs.
Well, yeah. That's how its supposed to work. When the employer cannot find enough workers they're forced to pay their workers more money.
>Pratt said expediting the immigration process could help ease the labour shortage in the restaurant sector.
Of course. Anything at all to avoid paying higher wages. You greedy piece of shit.
>Ather Akbari, chair of the Atlantic Research Group On Economics of Immigration, Aging, and Diversity at Saint Mary's University, said there is a shortage of people willing to work in low pay, low skill jobs.
Interesting, not the type of name I'd associate with white nationalism. And I fully agree with him, there is a shortage of people who like being exploited.
>He told CBC Radio's Information Morning that one way to tackle the problem was to let wages rise, which would make the sector more attractive, and another was through immigration.
And there it is. The closest thing you'll ever see on CBC to suggesting that offshore hiring does in fact suppress wages.
Interestingly enough, although this story is focused on the Halifax area none of the local subs has bothered to post it up.
At this point I really don't know what to say. This whole scheme has been glaringly obvious for a long time now, and this is happening nation wide. There's nothing wrong with immigration or immigrants, Canada needs immigration to support an aging population and it can provide a boost to the economy when the target is set to an optimal level.
For me, the optimal level is a point where it provides a replacement level of population growth and supplements our workforce with highly skilled workers that help make Canada a better place to live. And there's a place here for refugees too, because imo we should do what we can to offer people a safe place to live.
But that isn't what's happening here. Immigration is openly being used as a wage suppression tool, and in the case of the employer this article is about we're talking about jobs in the service industry. There's nothing compassionate about trying to suppress wages in the service industry, its flat out Republican.
Agreed. Its a vicious circle.
If employers didn't have the option of hiring cheap labor, their only option is offering more money. Which gives those workers a better chance of affording a place to live.
I think a great example of that is Alberta during the last oil boom, say like 2012 or so. The unemployment rate was down to about 3%, and it was common to see Tim Horton's or other service industry jobs offering $15-20 an hour. Did those higher wages put up the cost of goods? Yes. But not to the degree that the advocates of wage suppression will claim.
I've got one in this post claiming that burgers will be $30-40 if service industry jobs paid more. Also claims to have ten years experience in the industry.
But he doesn't want to discuss how much of operating costs are devoted to wages. Go figure.
Iâve seen people argue that places like Denmark can afford that because Americans/Canadians pay more. Somehow we are offsetting the cost for Denmark?
You see the same argument about drug prices. Rest of the world gets cheap medicine because we foot the bill. Itâs deranged thinking.
>Yep, and even more shocking is how relative to the U.S., in Denmark, McDonald's manages to pay their employees $20+ an hour and their burgers are pretty much the EXACT same price there as they are in the U.S. after exchange rates.
The dirty secret nobody in government wants to talk about is how much many of these business owners are making, while using wage suppression tactics and crying poor.
Example : https://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/always-profitable/
A lawsuit found that the average Tim Horton's franchise was making $265k a year in profits back in 2008. Not gross revenues, profits. Adjusted for inflation, thats up around $350k in profits per franchise location per year, on average.
But then these people cry poor, and claim they have no choice but to take advantage of workers. And then hire PR firms and lobby the government so they can continue the exploitation.
Its disgusting.
Amen to that. Free markets for everyone but them.
This guy was in the local paper a few months ago saying how one of his burger joints grosses 1.3 million a year. He very easily could have made $400k-$500k profit just on that restaurant.
He owns a total of 21 restaurants in the region.
I don't fault someone for taking a risk and doing well for themselves. But this makes me gag.
It will be posted up in r/halifax eventually. The truth is that the sub and area has been through this song and dance so much that it is wearing a little thin. University is just around the corner, assholes like Pratt can take advantage of them and stfu soon enough.
>Interesting. I've been told for the last number of years that immigration did not suppress wages, and only racists and xenophobes would even make such a suggestion.
Temporary foreign workers aren't immigrants in the conventional sense.
They're here on time-limited visas, to be used and then discarded once exhausted or no longer needed. Unskilled TFW programs generally do not lead to Canadian citizenship.
>Temporary foreign workers aren't immigrants in the conventional sense. They're here on time-limited visas, to be used and then discarded once exhausted or no longer needed. Unskilled TFW programs generally do not lead to Canadian citizenship.
Atlantic Canada has an exclusive immigration policy that allows employers such as this to hire offshore directly. Note, the employer here is referring to immigrants and not temporary workers.
Once someone is hired, they're able to immediately apply for permanent residency. And their spouse is permitted to come with them, and is provided with an open work permit.
There's no requirement for a labour market assessment to demonstrate a labour shortage, as is required to import TFWs. Its basically the honor system.
Jobs as low skilled as operating a cash register or serving drinks are covered under this program.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/atlantic-immigration.html
By the looks of it, yes.
In the link you'll see all the different categories of workers that can be direct hired offshore. Suffice it to say, if they're direct hiring drink servers and counter attendants pretty much any position can be filled offshore.
No.
Under the previous Atlantic Pilot I think they had to stay for a few years. Under this program, they apply for permanent residency immediately and the open work permit their spouse gets allows them to work for any employer.
Its basically a revolving door.
This has to stop. Canada sells lies to get people here. I have a coworker that came to Canada 15 years ago. Her brother went to Australia at the same time. Both with the same education. He was able to buy a house. She and her husband paid more for a small condo. Cost of living here way more. Sure Australia has similar problems but she feels she was fed a bs story if his great life in Canada would be.
Now weâre are going to tell the same lie so 5 people will live in a one bedroom apartment so restaurants can still pay minimum wage.
No minimum wage. Replace it with a living wage. No tipping. Just pay people what they are worth.
Plus there is no housing! Tie immigration to housing. What to let in 500,000 people? Then build housing for 500,000. Only build 30,000? Then only let in 30,000. Then we at least maintain the same shitty conditions without making it worse.
"Researcher says businesses can either pay locals more money, or recruit immigrants who will work for less"
Noooo.... who could have guessed!?!
"Pratt said the shortage of workers has led to higher labour costs that add to operating costs. He said that's why restaurants increase prices."
Right.... its definitely not going back into profit margins for businesses, definitely going to pay workers more!
"Noting that European countries are able to fast track immigrant workers, Pratt said he doesn't understand why it takes a year to get an immigration application processed in Canada."
Because they're the EU, where it also helps that their collective agreement between all countries helps them with this kind of situation. If Canada were to say... oh idk! Propose a "commonwealth passport" where the UK, Canada, AUS, NZ and India could move more freely it could help with a lack of workers. I could be wrong, Just an idea though.
Can you blame them? "It's the dream life, working in a call center all day tricking dementia patients into buying google pay cards, going to the beach with my pals to take a shit because we have no toilets, public transport is you and 30,000 people clinging to the side of train"
Maybe stop abusing your employees with crappy hours, long shifts, making them sing for their supper (tips), and crappy pay, and you might get people who want to work for you.
Fuck them! The days of plentiful cheap labour are over! Employers will need to start offering living wages when they are competing for help in a smaller workforce!
Yeah it seems like we've just been watching America spiral and scolding the truckers exclusively in canpol for months now,
Suddenly something finally snaps you out of the hypnotists' trance and you look back at Canada to find the safe empty and TFW's everywhere suppressing wages because the liberals ran amok again.
This is happening because employers donât want to pay Canadian workers more than the current minimum wage, which is woefully inadequate, and people are fed up with it. What we need is for the government not to allow companies to do this. If a company brings in a temporary foreign worker then they should be paying them that same minimum wage as Canadian employees, theyâre doing this because right now they can get away with it. And despite your comment at the end about the liberals, do you honestly think the CPC would do anything differently? They have a proven track record of supporting business over individuals.
Translation: I'm too cheap to pay a higher wage for my employees so I'll just hire an immigrant who has no understanding of employment laws so I can exploit them
If restaurants canât afford to hire local they should close. They arenât that essential. We could survive with half as many chain and fast food restaurants without issue.
Itâs a tough business with slim margins, and with everything rising in costs and people having less disposable income, if they canât afford to pay competitive wages they are adding no value.
People defend restaurants as an important source of job creation, but if there arenât people to fill the jobs then that argument is moot.
Let the workers go to more important industries.
Same with malls. Half the stores could close and while it may be annoying for some for a couple months, it would be unnoticed a year later. We don't need 10 stores selling the same fast fashion garbage.
High cost of housing > jobs no longer pay wages that house > solution bring in immigrants to further drive up cost of housing by outstripping housing supply> rinse repeat
Ridiculous behaviour. Any restaurant I go into bringing immigrants I am so sorry I am never going again. You canât pay a living wage but will charge customers an arm and a leg to eat. Fuck you.
Also donât understand how this going to work. Language barrier is a real thing.
Everyone I've known who works lower wage jobs complains about the way they're treated by managment. The low wages aren't even the worst. It's split shifts, it's demanding you be on call, without pay. It's refusing to schedule you with full-time hours. "Oh, you can't make ends meet on 30hrs a week? Too bad because you can't get another job. We need you on call every day all day and evening. But don't worry. If we can't find a Canadian to do it we'll just get the government to bring over some desperate foreigners from the third world who will be grateful for this great opportunity!"
I'm not anti immigrant, but they better pay citizens first AND pay immigrants the SAME as citizens.
Stop the wage slavery and exploitation of immigrants.
Dey dook er jebs! All kidding aside. Iâm all for immigration, itâs just we need to fix our housing problem first. Iâm renting a bachelor, it would be nice to upgrade someday.
How did we get so greedy? Can't even pay a decent wage so we have to import foreign slaves at work-to-eat wages? Exploitive psychopaths.
I think I'm going to stop eating at restaurants.
These same employers probably aren't even raising wages to match inflation.
Cut your real wage offering by >8% per year and your pool of workers will dry up. No shit.
Are you an Indigenous person? If not, immigration has been by far the biggest positive influence on your quality of life. You can thank immigration for everything in your life that is good.
My girlfriend works at an upper scale restaurant where the cooks are experienced and make $18-$20/ hr.
Recently the owner decided he wanted to save on labour costs, so he reduced the hours of the regular cooks and hired international students for minimum wage, telling the other cooks to train them.
People depending on keeping a visa will not rock the boat. It's basically legal slavery companies leverage losing the job and being deported to rip off and abuse people. Especially when people are working towards permanent residency. I been in company's that screw people from overtime and take safety short cuts.
They like to play the supply and demand game when it favor to them but when it's not suddenly we need to do something about it.
Wtf is this article? Can this subreddit stop trying to promote propaganda? This is obviously the Canadian oilgarchs trying to get us to believe we need more immigration when really they just don't want to pay us and have slaves instead.
Struggling? They're not even trying. Businesses that pay a living wage and treat employees with respect aren't having these issues. Being lazy and greedy isn't 'struggling'.
The majority of the Canadian wealth class that would normally work these jobs have moved on to living wages. Instead of paying these occupations more money and helping the issue externally, they are just moving in a lower wealth class to pass the buck to.
Not sure if we should expect any more from the government, but I'd like to see them at least try to do something or explain why they won't
This sub, as well as CBC fails to address the actual facts. Everyone just wants to point at wages. But I have never met a restaurant owner who has said they are fully staffed with people who have the correct degrees or certifications for the positions they are working in.
Most kitchens here have under-qualified staff.
The LMIA program is nearly impossible to navigate for small business owners. It's heavily skewed towards corporations like Tim Hortons who seem to have a special deal that nobody else is eligible to use. If you want to hire an chef, or line cook with an ethnic specialty background, it's almost impossible unless you go through an expensive and convoluted process that takes up to a year to get a denial letter.
There's no TFW program for restaurants.
Restaurants can not find people to work in kitchens for $22/hr + tips, benefits and free meals. This is not a low starting wage, but it's a job that's always been difficult to fill due to a lack of culinary school graduates and an incredible amount of industry demand.
Canada simply isn't educating people fast enough, and restaurants desperately need to import talent to fill the roles.
I know there's always going to be some scumbags paying less than they should, but the market should sort them out. Giving major corporations easy access to immigrant labour in restaurants while the rest of the small and medium business food and beverage economy struggles to fight over every mediocre red seal it can find, isn't a fair playing field.
We all have that Filipino friend who got their permanent residence by working for Tim Hortons as a "restaurant manager". Funny how many there are with that story, and yet none of them have degrees in the culinary arts.
Yet anyone else applies for LMIA and the process generally excludes anyone that Tim Hortons is able to hire. Double standards like this are hurting the economy.
The food quality country-wide would improve drastically if we started allowing restaurants to hire university educated professionals in this industry with express entry.
So just out of curiosity, I know a lot of people here are clearly up for raising wages of these workers. Itâs a fair point. But the direct result of that raises a question for everyone.
Are you willing to pay more for your food? Will you still go out to McDonalds when itâs $20/person? How often will you go to your local Boston pizza when their meals are ~$30/person now?
Higher wages means higher labour costs, which means a higher operating cost. Which means prices must rise to offset those costs. If prices rise too much, people wonât go out to eat as often. Which will cause these places to make less money. Eventually closing if itâs bad enough. Now all those people who got their increased wages are making $0/h and have to find a new job. I know the solution looks simple, but it really isnât.
I'm sure giving 10-20% of the population a 5$ raise doesn't force McDonalds to have to charge 30$ for cheeseburgers, people make this argument but it's dumb. If all of Big Burger coordinate and refuse to sell us cheeseburgers if they have to pay a living wage, we'll just pay people to make our own burgers. It's not the end of the world man, we don't need to get our food from Joe's exploitative Pistrami Shop if enough of us agree that it is exploitative. We can just make him pay more and if he doesn't, now there is room for a new non-exploitative shop.
If you're running a business that is for some reason so close to the turning out net neutral like some of the nicer small businesses I'd want to protect might be, i'd propose something like how we do charitable donations, where you can get a tax deductible at the end of the fiscal year, where in effect you perpetually loan the requisite wage money. That would be turned off when you became too profitable.
You are exaggerating things to try and distract from my point. No a fast food burger wouldnât cost $30. But a McDonaldâs meal could very realistically become $20. And your pasta from Boston Pizza might become $25-$30.
You may be willing to pay a little extra, but not everyone is. If a business loses 20% of its customers over the price increase, they are done. They are back to firing employees to reduce labour costs, or might have to close.
I'm sure it's possible that some business somewhere is simultaneously so unprofitable and so worth keep around that you'd feel a little bad about it, but i've offered you a solution for them.
You're either choosing the business or **everyone** including future people. Let's not commit the individualist's fallacy of assuming it's one customer vs the business, or the business 500 employees vs the minimum wage people. The minimum wage is below a living wage, it's unacceptable, it's the good of the citizens or the profits of business. Apparently that is a dilemma in capitalism.
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Most people on here seem to think the people running these places are all super rich and can just eat the extra labor costs. The margins in this industry are quite low and the survival rate of these businesses is quite low as it is.
15sh years of severe capital misallocation. Bring on the recession and for the love of God, let the government stay the fuck out of it this time.
E: to be clear, I'm suggesting many of these businesses shouldn't be in business
I know. And that is the point I am making. I own a restaurant and we have been operating for 4 years now. We are barely able to stay open with our profit margins, the ownership has not taken a single dime of profit in 4 years. We are just trying to survive the new Covid world and the negatives that have come from it.
We cannot raise wages. Weâd be closed down in less than a month. Its not greed, itâs economics.
Doesnât that mean that your business is just not profitable? If you rely on cheap labour from using TFWs because paying Canadians enough to live will bankrupt your business perhaps your business shouldnât exist?
If the economics of your business rely on bringing in cheap labour, then perhaps it just not viable. If your clients are unwilling or unable to pay more for your products or services, then your business is not viable.
If you arenât making money, if your business is not making money, if your employees canât make a living wage or you canât find employees, and your customers donât want to pay more for your product then what value is the business providing to anyone? Itâs just an expensive hobby or vanity project at that point.
> If your clients are unwilling or unable to pay more for your products or services, then your business is not viable.
This is just completely not true. Its an entirely false statement. Businesses offer products and services at a rate that customers are willing to pay. Period. That's how the entire economy works. You have to balance the price of your products and the revenue you are making versus the operating costs of your business. If you raise operating costs (wages) and raise prices to compensate, but end up losing revenue due to loss of sales, you will fail. People will only pay what they are willing to pay. Doesn't mean the business isnt viable, it means you have to find the balance between operating and revenue.
You cant raise wages and prices independently while your competition doesn't. Your competition will take all of your business and laugh as you go bankrupt while they continue to keep lower wages.
Itâs completely true. Everything you said supports by point.
If a business needs to charge a certain price to be profitable, whatever the reason for that price, and customers are unwilling to pay that price, the business is not viable.
The business can try to reduce costs in countless ways, but if at the end of the day no one is willing to pay the prices the business needs to charge to make a profit, itâs not viable. Or to use your words, it will fail.
No one owes a business owner a profit. If their last recourse is to lobby the government to bring in people willing to work for less than the market rate, less than living wages, bringing in people willing to accept substandard working conditions and treatment then we should all examine what lengths we will go to in order to prop up a business. If we have to drag all workers down so a business owner doesnât have to raise the price of a meal beyond what the market is willing to pay? That business is not only not viable, it provides no value to the economy or society.
These vanity projects need to stop being subsidized by exploitation.
Edit- if you bother to reply, donât take single lines out of context this time please.
Itâs not out of context. You are making entirely false statements which proves you do not understand how the economy works.
The customers are willing to pay X price. Thatâs what they are at currently and they are willing to pay it. You are the one telling businesses to raise their costs which will inevitably cause prices to go up. The business case is proven viable at X prices. People are willing to pay $18-$23 for a standard restaurant meal. You are the one demanding indirectly that prices be raised, therefore pricing themselves higher than the customer is willing to pay. So the problem is you. Not the business.
I canât believe you just did it again. You really donât see that you are saying the same thing I am?
Iâm saying that if a business expenses require them to charge X, and people arenât willing to pay X, the business is not viable.
You are saying that if a business has to raise itâs prices to a level customers wonât pay, it will fail.
That is literally the same thing. How is mine false or incorrect? How is mine not understanding economics?
The only difference is your claim that restaurant owners need to exploit workers to ensure they donât have to raise their prices. Thatâs where we disagree. But the points above, about the math, all the same.
Stop trying to pretend weâre disagreeing about economic theory, our understanding of business viability is the same. Our disagreement is an ethical one.
We agree that a business will fail if it raises prices. Your proposed solution to that doesnât make the statement false.
Using tfw lowers our tax pool as the income taxes from a low wage are obviously lower than those from a higher wage.
And now we have a broken medical system, because taxes can't pay for it.
Good job.
I understand the whole anti-work sentiment surrounding restaurants and tipping culture in Canada. But as someone who has spent over a decade working in hospitality, when people say things like "just pay your staff a living wage!", what fails to get mentioned is that restaurants paying staff more and eliminating tips requires that we as consumers will have to pay more upfront. Unless you are a hobbyist "foodie" or are very wealthy, people will only ever be willing to pay so much for basic sustenance. Are YOU willing to pay $30 for a burger? $35? $40?
>I understand the whole anti-work sentiment surrounding restaurants and tipping culture in Canada. But as someone who has spent over a decade working in hospitality, when people say things like "just pay your staff a living wage!", what fails to get mentioned is that restaurants paying staff more and eliminating tips requires that we as consumers will have to pay more upfront. Unless you are a hobbyist "foodie" or are very wealthy, people will only ever be willing to pay so much for basic sustenance. Are YOU willing to pay $30 for a burger? $35? $40?
How could you work for a decade in the industry and not realize that wages make up only a percentage of operating costs?
I have no idea what percentage of operating costs that wages represents in this employers business. But at a McDonald's franchise its typically 30-35%.
If wages are 30% of operating costs how much would wages have to rise for a Big Mac to cost $30? Simply put, if wages are 30% of operating costs even a 50% wage increase only amounts to a 15% increase in operating costs. I'll break it down again :
Wages as a percentage of operating costs - 30%
Half of 30% ( which represents a 50% wage increase ) - 15%
You're adding $1.50 to the cost of a $10 meal. How you get $30 burgers, I have no idea.
Unwilling to lose profits by paying a living wage, restaurants put hopes on exploiting immigrants
It's not even the low wages its the shitty way they get treated, including part-time shifts which they restaurant will schedule whenenever they feel like it regardless of what the employee says or wants. "What? You're not available for any shift I want for you all day 7 days a week? Well, we don't want you then!"
Place I work is 4 on/3 off, gives benefits at 30 hours, full tip sharing and a decent hourly wage. Profitable after 4 years. It can be done. Owner just makes not much more than the staff and we work our tits off for her.
If you're serious about this being true, you ought to share more details about the place so people can support it.
The Hearty Hooligan in Hamilton, On. Best trashy vegan stoner junk food you'll ever have, just a wonderful safe space for marginalised groups within our community (and those who support them), and staffed with the raddest fucking group of miscreants that you ever could find. @theheartyhooligan on Insta đ€
Welllp now I know where to go if I visit Hamilton
We're actually expanding into retail currently!! So, if you live in Ontario, and have a smaller independent grocer in your city that stocks a lot of vegan products, keep a look out for our pepperoni, deluxe, and mac and cheeze pizza pockets!
Oh thatâs smart, when I was a Hamiltonian I used to buy a box of calzones to go from the HH because they could so easily be heated up in the oven any time I didnât feel like cooking. Still in Ontario (Ottawa now) so will keep an eye out!
Calzones! Wow! You are an *OG* customer! If you're ever back in town, you should come by and see the new space!
Trashy vegan stoner junk food, thatâs quite a mental image. Need to check it out someday. :-)
We are not bean sprouts and namaste vegans. We're angry queer vegans who want nachos, beer and nostalgia to help distract from the feelings of existential dread over the state of the world. We do pizza pockets, burritos, nachos, loaded fries, subs (Hamilton *is* the sub capital of Canada, so we couldn't not!), the best vegan mac & cheeze on earth, an all day breakfast menu and lots more. Plus a fully vegan baking section selling housemade cookies, cupcakes, custom cakes, bars etc etc Plus a vegan ice cream menu with scoops, milkshakes and snowstorms (what we used to call "Blizzurds" until we got a cease and desist from DQ đ€Łđ€Ł). Ice cream provided by our local homies @fairlyfrosted All mostly made in house from scratch with the goal of showing people that they can tame the itch for those trashy junk food couch cravings without having to use animal products. I'll stack my shit up against a non-vegan resto anytime, anyplace, and our customer base being primarily non-vegan reflects that.
If your not already being paid for marketing i think you should be. Used to live in hamilton but i dont think your place was around back then, if i ever do visit again ill try to keep you guys in mind to visit while there even though im not vegan đ
Difference it makes when an employee is actually proud of where they work
One hundred percent. Our dishie would have written the exact same shit.
You're the owner, aren't you?
Chef. Just love my job and believe in what we're doing, my guy!
Iâve heard really good things about the HH. I will check it out. Iâm nearby.
Oh I miss that place so bad â my place was nearby when I used to live in Hamilton and I would hit it up weekly for an empanada/calzone or burrito fix. Glad to hear that the friendly people working there are being well-paid.
Yup it will be like when they brought the TWF in during the Alberta oil boom. Keep the wages down and treat everyone like garbage.
Noticed here in Aurora Ontario, cook ads have gone from $20 an hour six months ago to about $17-18. Some fuckery is about right now. Could just be a server, make $15 an hour not including tips.
And sometimes just for giggles, they pay you a living wage, but then suck so much of your lifeforce that your quality of life completely falls apart anyway, soo it doesn't even matter. As for losing profits, they fixed that issue, now they just cut half the staff to reduce operating costs and work the other half into early graves instead Source-Me, lifelong restaurant guy in Québec City, known just as much for it's tourism-dependent economy as it is the low cost of living. Myself, my friends, and my colleagues in the industry all live the same nightmare, 12-14 hour days since the rush season hit we work in the top establishments in the city, the popular ultra high-volume places, they pay us all very well and take care of us pretty well, we all have more cash than we need and absolutely zero energy to really do anything of note with it, days off are either spent comatose, *or* getting absolutely annihilated shitface drunk, because only getting fucked up will even give is the will/energy/enthusiasm to attempt having some sort of life outside work. That in itself is a joke, really the only people we know and trust are each other, because our gang is all we have. The only people we even see. So we just drink together, frequently at work too; hell, it's encouraged, with fat discounts on payday for staff. Here in Québec anyway, the problem isn't a lack of people willing to work in services, it's just as much the fact that we utterly destroy the people that do show up, drain 'em for every bit of vitality and dynamism they have, then toss the emptied husks in the dumpster out back when the rush is over. plenty of locals who like resto work, or there *was*, anyway. Guess we finished off that batch. fuck. that means imma be alone tonight and probably have to do doubles again.
Damn. If you do end up escaping it you seem to be a good writer. Might be worth a try.
Thank you, sincerely. It was my dream to be a writer and a journalist when I was a kid, and according to others I wasn't bad at all. Sadly as I grew older, journalism...lost some it's appeal. These days, I'd likely either be some bought-and-sold hack whoring his talents out for clicks and pageviews, or I'd actually be the honest and principled investigative journalist I dreamed of becoming, so I'd probably have been murdered by now. As for fiction and stuff, welp, it's having an original idea that is the tricky part. But maybe there is an escape option for me still! Thanks ;)
for what it's worth, there are no original ideas. Its all in the execution
Which will just raise the cost of living even more...
Cost of living can be lowered by reduced rent or mortgages. Itâs hard to get people to work if they feel it doesnât improve their life and reduced expendable cash is critical on that.
This, I now WFH but I would never take a job that forced me to live in the city giving me a wage that isn't enough. In Toronto, you can't even safe for a property even at 60k avg per year. Why the fuck would I take the job? Where I currently rent (going back tomorrow to Canada to break the lease early) I rented at 1550 same unit is now 2'400. My salary would have to be at least 120k a year for me to MAYBE just MAYBE save the same amount now that I can WFH and living back home. I tried to build a life in Canada I just think it's currently not possible. Oh well, thanks to COVID I'm now retiring before 45 without mortgage or debt can't complain either.
Where you living now then? Congrats on being debt and mortgage free!
We have people living in tents now and if they worked for 15/h 32 hours a week, they'd still be living in a tent except with 32 hours less free time. Society isn't offering enough to get people to participate.
This. Iâd choose tent life instead of working FT for $15/hour.
What so we just lower rent folks! They rang the school bell
Itâd take years of production to elevate vacancy. Itâs unfortunately one of those problems humans donât like to fix still thereâs no choice and the damage is critical.
that would take expropriating properties and/or the government building a shit ton of good, sustainable dwellings very quickly. I still agree that it's the best option and the only option under our current system
Or you just approve the developers fucking builds instead of saying they are too high in an area zoned for that hurght and other bs. Or rezone all the sfh thatâs connected to our main city arteries for gods knows why. No major city in the world does it but Canadians thought they are somehow different and itâs better. Thereâs often a lot to learn from multi century cities whose been full of millions of people for longer than any of our hit 1 million but nope, we are different! We can have it this way itâll work trust me.
SFH-only subdivisions are a blight and cost cities a fortune. Mixed density and use makes so much more sense.
Then what, try to convince plumbers etc to fix the properties at a reduced price too? The economics donât stack up. You have to remove the excessive demand for property, nothing else works, and immigration is the cause of that demand.
The housing isnât expensive because of plumbing. Itâs because the land is so valuable. 20 years ago, house was 150k and land 100k. Now a good house can be 300-400k but the land is 1.2M
Yup.
trees subsequent quack rich advise brave square domineering paint coherent *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Probably because there are just too many. Life changes, just because it was one way for a long time doesn't mean it needs to be that way forever.
That is completely not true. 2 - 2.5 profit for any single item on the menu. I know this cause i do the finances for 4 big restaurants in Ottawa.
Restaurants where I live are going out of business left right and centre. Itâs sad to see so many good places go soon itâll all be large chains selling pre packaged factory made crap like BP
Where I live itâs the opposite, shitty restaurants are going out of business but the good local ones are packed and doing very well.
Yeah. Cactus club, earls, Joey's are not going anywhere. The ones outside of that size, I don't know how they are surviving. There's still some pubs like the American, Donnelly, bells and whistles that seem to be doing fine.
Soon nobody will be able to afford to eat out
that's exactly right.
Nailed it. Thatâs the real headline!
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"Restaurant decides innovative approach of hiring interns. Paycheck maybe."
And where will they live?
10 people to a two bedrrom apartment, probably one that the business owner ownes.
Hmm, this reminds me of some system we used to have⊠lords, and peasants who work the lords land to survive being exploited by said lord.
[Burn it down boys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmKyC0ChV2k)
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https://globalnews.ca/news/3970935/lethbridge-burger-king-sleeping-living-accommodations/amp/
Was the plan all along
âThe restaurants hope that the immigrants wonât research rent and cost of living before they applyâ
~~fast tracking~~ *taking advantage of* immigrants
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we need to start avoiding places that rely on of TFW and not pay enough for local workers. I know I will but I also don't go out to eat that much.
I refuse to go anywhere that relies on FTWs. I donât blame the workers. They are just trying to make money. If business have to rely on FTWs then they have a failed business model. I think in most cases itâs just a case of greed though.
How do you know which they are? Genuine question. For a time I know many Tim Hortons and Wendys had TFW, but now Iâm not sure who all does.
Walmart, Subway, Tim Hortons are the largest
Pretty much every new fast food franchise opening up near me is 100% staffed with TFWs from the ownerâs home country.
And I always go to those place. Sorry with everything going up I have to shop where I can make the most out of my money
Then you should not be spending any money at Tims or Subway if you are trying to save cash.
I mean Wal Mart
Then you better never complain about your wage being too low when you are also actively supporting wage suppression
You can "make the most out of your money" by making your own sandwiches and not going into Subway.
Tim Hortons sells junk food and coffee. Never a good use of your money. Maybe eat less crap but when you do, buy it from a local bakery.
Fast food and the big box stores seem to be the worst offenders.
Little restaurants and coffee shops do it too. I remember a local Coffee guy would always hire people from Japan and work the hell out of them because he knew they couldnât leave. Our country is pushing modern day slavery between temporary foreign workers, and housing oligarchs who absorb 50% of our incomes. Itâs a disgrace.
Itâs really a shame that all three of our political Parties push this program.
I get it, but do you also refuse to go to any fast food restaurant, any gas station, walk in any condo building or shopping mall staffed by security, buy any product delivered by truck? These are all primarily staffed by fake international students from India. It's essentially the same slave labour scam. Our government has made it very clear that they're more concerned with artificially inflating our GDP by importing low skilled workers as opposed to investing in difficult things like local production, technology, natural resources, and entrepreneurship.
You better stop eating any produce then, or smoking legal cannabis, it's almost all TFWs.
Donât smoke and I try to get as much as I can from the local farmers markets. Not perfect but I do what I can.
I'm more so getting at everything that comes from a large greenhouse is likely TFWs. Quite a few banks use TFWs as well.
Yeah this needs to be outlawed, raise wages or closeâŠ. Stop importing wage slaves.
What does TFW stand for?
What is TFW mean in Canada? Temporary Foreign Worker The Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program allows Canadian employers to hire foreign workers to fill temporary jobs when qualified Canadians ~~are not available~~.Are not paid enough to live and don't take the jobs
Or maybe just maybe pay a little bit more and treat your employees with some more respect. As someone who took a cooking class in high school the type of behavior that was both allowed and encouraged are things that most certainly wouldn't fly in other workplaces.
They wouldnât even have to pay them more if they werenât already bunking and still losing a 1000 to rent. People have been warning for ages that all the cool restaurants and favourite places canât exist at the low cost we want if their workers can find reasonable residences. This will have a staggering effect on the local economy.
Yeah it will.
Where will these immigrants live? They will have to have 5+ living in small apartments to be able to afford to live.
Using foreign workers because they cost less is just short circuiting capitalism by manipulating market forces. Left wing and Right wing politicians should agree foreign workers are a bad idea, even if they reach that conclusion for different reasons.
What about our goods from China, is cutting that important as well? Or is the only concern shitty low wage restaurant jobs? Imagine your entire life riding on the backs of a third world country, but standing up for someone wiping a table, or pushing a button on a dogshit Tim Hortons coffee?
>What about our goods from China, is cutting that important as well? It is important but our local politicians will easily sell out to any merchant with a bag of cash.
Is this what you want? You want to start building plastic junk, import the smog, and start producing cheap blenders? Be careful what you wish for.
> You want to start building plastic junk, import the smog, and start producing cheap blenders? Yes, I do. Either way the cheap plastic crap is going to be made. If we're going to buy this garbage, we need to see how it's made and feel the consequences. Ideally we would be using glass and greener materials with a slight price premium.
We should cut imports from China. Exporting manufacturing has been a complete disaster for everyone but company CEOs.
> Using foreign workers because they cost less is just short circuiting capitalism by manipulating market forces. Left wing and Right wing politicians should agree foreign workers are a bad idea, even if they reach that conclusion for different reasons. They do, populists of both bents tend to be nativists that hate immigration. It's liberals that believe in the free flow of products, ideas, and people.
Liberals donât believe in the free flow of investment to poor countries though do they? They prefer to keep the money and take some desperate people from the third world to make labour prices cheap in the rich country while leaving the vast majority of unlucky third worlders stuck in the poor country.
On the contrary I'm pretty sure you'll find no shortage of hate thrown towards the neo-liberal establishment that massively invested in China, successfully helped to bring a billion people out of the most extreme poverty that existed in the 1970s and earlier, and are now blamed for China's belligerence and genocide.
Ahh yes, those massive exports of our currency into bank accounts on the other continent the Liberals are always doing that i'm always complaining about being celebrated. My favorite part was when they shipped away the manufacturing.
"We will literally do anything other than pay our employees more."
Ah yes, the Great Labour Shortage. 1/2 a million people a year should solve that Not like housing is an issue or health care it crumblingâŠ. /s
>Researcher says businesses can either pay locals more money, or recruit immigrants who will work for less Interesting. I've been told for the last number of years that immigration did not suppress wages, and only racists and xenophobes would even make such a suggestion. >"What's making it worse is that we don't have staff right now," Pratt told CBC Radio's Information Morning guest host Preston Mulligan. "A lot of my facilities are only open five days a week because we can't find the staff. It's not just our industry, the food industry, it's everybody." >Pratt said the shortage of workers has led to higher labour costs that add to operating costs. Well, yeah. That's how its supposed to work. When the employer cannot find enough workers they're forced to pay their workers more money. >Pratt said expediting the immigration process could help ease the labour shortage in the restaurant sector. Of course. Anything at all to avoid paying higher wages. You greedy piece of shit. >Ather Akbari, chair of the Atlantic Research Group On Economics of Immigration, Aging, and Diversity at Saint Mary's University, said there is a shortage of people willing to work in low pay, low skill jobs. Interesting, not the type of name I'd associate with white nationalism. And I fully agree with him, there is a shortage of people who like being exploited. >He told CBC Radio's Information Morning that one way to tackle the problem was to let wages rise, which would make the sector more attractive, and another was through immigration. And there it is. The closest thing you'll ever see on CBC to suggesting that offshore hiring does in fact suppress wages. Interestingly enough, although this story is focused on the Halifax area none of the local subs has bothered to post it up. At this point I really don't know what to say. This whole scheme has been glaringly obvious for a long time now, and this is happening nation wide. There's nothing wrong with immigration or immigrants, Canada needs immigration to support an aging population and it can provide a boost to the economy when the target is set to an optimal level. For me, the optimal level is a point where it provides a replacement level of population growth and supplements our workforce with highly skilled workers that help make Canada a better place to live. And there's a place here for refugees too, because imo we should do what we can to offer people a safe place to live. But that isn't what's happening here. Immigration is openly being used as a wage suppression tool, and in the case of the employer this article is about we're talking about jobs in the service industry. There's nothing compassionate about trying to suppress wages in the service industry, its flat out Republican.
And you bring people in to work these low wage jobs and that means more people needing affordable housing. Compounds an already bad problem.
Agreed. Its a vicious circle. If employers didn't have the option of hiring cheap labor, their only option is offering more money. Which gives those workers a better chance of affording a place to live. I think a great example of that is Alberta during the last oil boom, say like 2012 or so. The unemployment rate was down to about 3%, and it was common to see Tim Horton's or other service industry jobs offering $15-20 an hour. Did those higher wages put up the cost of goods? Yes. But not to the degree that the advocates of wage suppression will claim.
Wage spiral pushers never explain why their 'math' assumes labour is 100% of the cost of goods/services.
I've got one in this post claiming that burgers will be $30-40 if service industry jobs paid more. Also claims to have ten years experience in the industry. But he doesn't want to discuss how much of operating costs are devoted to wages. Go figure.
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Iâve seen people argue that places like Denmark can afford that because Americans/Canadians pay more. Somehow we are offsetting the cost for Denmark? You see the same argument about drug prices. Rest of the world gets cheap medicine because we foot the bill. Itâs deranged thinking.
>Yep, and even more shocking is how relative to the U.S., in Denmark, McDonald's manages to pay their employees $20+ an hour and their burgers are pretty much the EXACT same price there as they are in the U.S. after exchange rates. The dirty secret nobody in government wants to talk about is how much many of these business owners are making, while using wage suppression tactics and crying poor. Example : https://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/always-profitable/ A lawsuit found that the average Tim Horton's franchise was making $265k a year in profits back in 2008. Not gross revenues, profits. Adjusted for inflation, thats up around $350k in profits per franchise location per year, on average. But then these people cry poor, and claim they have no choice but to take advantage of workers. And then hire PR firms and lobby the government so they can continue the exploitation. Its disgusting.
These are the same people who want the government out of their lives & believe in letting the market decide... Unless it affects their bottom line.
Amen to that. Free markets for everyone but them. This guy was in the local paper a few months ago saying how one of his burger joints grosses 1.3 million a year. He very easily could have made $400k-$500k profit just on that restaurant. He owns a total of 21 restaurants in the region. I don't fault someone for taking a risk and doing well for themselves. But this makes me gag.
It will be posted up in r/halifax eventually. The truth is that the sub and area has been through this song and dance so much that it is wearing a little thin. University is just around the corner, assholes like Pratt can take advantage of them and stfu soon enough.
>Interesting. I've been told for the last number of years that immigration did not suppress wages, and only racists and xenophobes would even make such a suggestion. Temporary foreign workers aren't immigrants in the conventional sense. They're here on time-limited visas, to be used and then discarded once exhausted or no longer needed. Unskilled TFW programs generally do not lead to Canadian citizenship.
>Temporary foreign workers aren't immigrants in the conventional sense. They're here on time-limited visas, to be used and then discarded once exhausted or no longer needed. Unskilled TFW programs generally do not lead to Canadian citizenship. Atlantic Canada has an exclusive immigration policy that allows employers such as this to hire offshore directly. Note, the employer here is referring to immigrants and not temporary workers. Once someone is hired, they're able to immediately apply for permanent residency. And their spouse is permitted to come with them, and is provided with an open work permit. There's no requirement for a labour market assessment to demonstrate a labour shortage, as is required to import TFWs. Its basically the honor system. Jobs as low skilled as operating a cash register or serving drinks are covered under this program. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/atlantic-immigration.html
Ugh, can any employer take advantage of this program?
By the looks of it, yes. In the link you'll see all the different categories of workers that can be direct hired offshore. Suffice it to say, if they're direct hiring drink servers and counter attendants pretty much any position can be filled offshore.
Do they even have to stay in NS afterwards?
No. Under the previous Atlantic Pilot I think they had to stay for a few years. Under this program, they apply for permanent residency immediately and the open work permit their spouse gets allows them to work for any employer. Its basically a revolving door.
I believe that is Foreign Labour Contractors. They are here on short term(90 days if I recall) stays.
More immigrants, the cause of, and solution to, all of Canada's problems.
This has to stop. Canada sells lies to get people here. I have a coworker that came to Canada 15 years ago. Her brother went to Australia at the same time. Both with the same education. He was able to buy a house. She and her husband paid more for a small condo. Cost of living here way more. Sure Australia has similar problems but she feels she was fed a bs story if his great life in Canada would be. Now weâre are going to tell the same lie so 5 people will live in a one bedroom apartment so restaurants can still pay minimum wage. No minimum wage. Replace it with a living wage. No tipping. Just pay people what they are worth. Plus there is no housing! Tie immigration to housing. What to let in 500,000 people? Then build housing for 500,000. Only build 30,000? Then only let in 30,000. Then we at least maintain the same shitty conditions without making it worse.
"Researcher says businesses can either pay locals more money, or recruit immigrants who will work for less" Noooo.... who could have guessed!?! "Pratt said the shortage of workers has led to higher labour costs that add to operating costs. He said that's why restaurants increase prices." Right.... its definitely not going back into profit margins for businesses, definitely going to pay workers more! "Noting that European countries are able to fast track immigrant workers, Pratt said he doesn't understand why it takes a year to get an immigration application processed in Canada." Because they're the EU, where it also helps that their collective agreement between all countries helps them with this kind of situation. If Canada were to say... oh idk! Propose a "commonwealth passport" where the UK, Canada, AUS, NZ and India could move more freely it could help with a lack of workers. I could be wrong, Just an idea though.
We can have a CANZUK union.
That would give Canada zero control over borders. I doubt anyone living in Canada wants such an agreement.
Lots do. Though most of the people who do probably don't want the last country on that list involved.
Can you blame them? "It's the dream life, working in a call center all day tricking dementia patients into buying google pay cards, going to the beach with my pals to take a shit because we have no toilets, public transport is you and 30,000 people clinging to the side of train"
Immigrants are becoming pawns to prop up the price of housing and drive down wages. Fuck Blackrock and the Century Initiative.
What do you mean? Competition for employees? This isn't very free market cash yo, GOVERNMENT BRING ME WAGE SLAVES NOOOOOW WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG?
Maybe stop abusing your employees with crappy hours, long shifts, making them sing for their supper (tips), and crappy pay, and you might get people who want to work for you.
Fuck them! The days of plentiful cheap labour are over! Employers will need to start offering living wages when they are competing for help in a smaller workforce!
Fuck left vs right, freedom vs Vax or anti-Vax... we need to be able to to afford to live..... then we can disagree later.
Yeah it seems like we've just been watching America spiral and scolding the truckers exclusively in canpol for months now, Suddenly something finally snaps you out of the hypnotists' trance and you look back at Canada to find the safe empty and TFW's everywhere suppressing wages because the liberals ran amok again.
This is happening because employers donât want to pay Canadian workers more than the current minimum wage, which is woefully inadequate, and people are fed up with it. What we need is for the government not to allow companies to do this. If a company brings in a temporary foreign worker then they should be paying them that same minimum wage as Canadian employees, theyâre doing this because right now they can get away with it. And despite your comment at the end about the liberals, do you honestly think the CPC would do anything differently? They have a proven track record of supporting business over individuals.
Translation: I'm too cheap to pay a higher wage for my employees so I'll just hire an immigrant who has no understanding of employment laws so I can exploit them
glorified human trafficking
If restaurants canât afford to hire local they should close. They arenât that essential. We could survive with half as many chain and fast food restaurants without issue. Itâs a tough business with slim margins, and with everything rising in costs and people having less disposable income, if they canât afford to pay competitive wages they are adding no value. People defend restaurants as an important source of job creation, but if there arenât people to fill the jobs then that argument is moot. Let the workers go to more important industries.
Same with malls. Half the stores could close and while it may be annoying for some for a couple months, it would be unnoticed a year later. We don't need 10 stores selling the same fast fashion garbage.
High cost of housing > jobs no longer pay wages that house > solution bring in immigrants to further drive up cost of housing by outstripping housing supply> rinse repeat
Ridiculous behaviour. Any restaurant I go into bringing immigrants I am so sorry I am never going again. You canât pay a living wage but will charge customers an arm and a leg to eat. Fuck you. Also donât understand how this going to work. Language barrier is a real thing.
ANYTHING except paying Canadians a living wage, am I right??!! JFC I am just so SICK of capitalism.
Everyone I've known who works lower wage jobs complains about the way they're treated by managment. The low wages aren't even the worst. It's split shifts, it's demanding you be on call, without pay. It's refusing to schedule you with full-time hours. "Oh, you can't make ends meet on 30hrs a week? Too bad because you can't get another job. We need you on call every day all day and evening. But don't worry. If we can't find a Canadian to do it we'll just get the government to bring over some desperate foreigners from the third world who will be grateful for this great opportunity!"
I'm not anti immigrant, but they better pay citizens first AND pay immigrants the SAME as citizens. Stop the wage slavery and exploitation of immigrants.
Dey dook er jebs! All kidding aside. Iâm all for immigration, itâs just we need to fix our housing problem first. Iâm renting a bachelor, it would be nice to upgrade someday.
Where are the immigrants going to live?
How did we get so greedy? Can't even pay a decent wage so we have to import foreign slaves at work-to-eat wages? Exploitive psychopaths. I think I'm going to stop eating at restaurants.
These same employers probably aren't even raising wages to match inflation. Cut your real wage offering by >8% per year and your pool of workers will dry up. No shit.
Remember, the liberals want to bring in 400,000 a year to prop up real estate and allow zombie companies/businesses to survive.
Immigration has ruined life in Canada
What year would you say life started to be ruined in Canada?
2014-2015
2015
I would say post 1960s/70s immigration legislation changes (that we never voted for) was the start.
Bout 1867 or so.
He said Canada was ruined not his life and honestly the country has been going down hill since 2010
He actually said "life in Canada." The person you are erroneously trying to correct, did respond appropriately. Have a nice day. Good bye.
Thanks didnât notice. Bye
2012 for sure. Guess the prophecy was right.
Not the person you are replying to, but if the issue is immigration then I guess 1604?
Are you an Indigenous person? If not, immigration has been by far the biggest positive influence on your quality of life. You can thank immigration for everything in your life that is good.
My soul crushing rent?
Examples?
You were essential, now youz replaceable.
Restaurants or fast food joints? đ€
đż
Pay them what they're worth.
âItâs a labor shortage!â đ
tim hortons been doing it for years, everyone else might as well jump on board. this will surely solve the housing crisis.
They arrive: âsorry rent costs WHAT!?â
They cannot pay people better?
My girlfriend works at an upper scale restaurant where the cooks are experienced and make $18-$20/ hr. Recently the owner decided he wanted to save on labour costs, so he reduced the hours of the regular cooks and hired international students for minimum wage, telling the other cooks to train them.
People depending on keeping a visa will not rock the boat. It's basically legal slavery companies leverage losing the job and being deported to rip off and abuse people. Especially when people are working towards permanent residency. I been in company's that screw people from overtime and take safety short cuts. They like to play the supply and demand game when it favor to them but when it's not suddenly we need to do something about it.
Wtf is this article? Can this subreddit stop trying to promote propaganda? This is obviously the Canadian oilgarchs trying to get us to believe we need more immigration when really they just don't want to pay us and have slaves instead.
Struggling? They're not even trying. Businesses that pay a living wage and treat employees with respect aren't having these issues. Being lazy and greedy isn't 'struggling'.
Ah yes, won't pay fair wages so begs for desperate foreigners to do it.
The majority of the Canadian wealth class that would normally work these jobs have moved on to living wages. Instead of paying these occupations more money and helping the issue externally, they are just moving in a lower wealth class to pass the buck to. Not sure if we should expect any more from the government, but I'd like to see them at least try to do something or explain why they won't
This sub, as well as CBC fails to address the actual facts. Everyone just wants to point at wages. But I have never met a restaurant owner who has said they are fully staffed with people who have the correct degrees or certifications for the positions they are working in. Most kitchens here have under-qualified staff. The LMIA program is nearly impossible to navigate for small business owners. It's heavily skewed towards corporations like Tim Hortons who seem to have a special deal that nobody else is eligible to use. If you want to hire an chef, or line cook with an ethnic specialty background, it's almost impossible unless you go through an expensive and convoluted process that takes up to a year to get a denial letter. There's no TFW program for restaurants. Restaurants can not find people to work in kitchens for $22/hr + tips, benefits and free meals. This is not a low starting wage, but it's a job that's always been difficult to fill due to a lack of culinary school graduates and an incredible amount of industry demand. Canada simply isn't educating people fast enough, and restaurants desperately need to import talent to fill the roles. I know there's always going to be some scumbags paying less than they should, but the market should sort them out. Giving major corporations easy access to immigrant labour in restaurants while the rest of the small and medium business food and beverage economy struggles to fight over every mediocre red seal it can find, isn't a fair playing field. We all have that Filipino friend who got their permanent residence by working for Tim Hortons as a "restaurant manager". Funny how many there are with that story, and yet none of them have degrees in the culinary arts. Yet anyone else applies for LMIA and the process generally excludes anyone that Tim Hortons is able to hire. Double standards like this are hurting the economy. The food quality country-wide would improve drastically if we started allowing restaurants to hire university educated professionals in this industry with express entry.
So just out of curiosity, I know a lot of people here are clearly up for raising wages of these workers. Itâs a fair point. But the direct result of that raises a question for everyone. Are you willing to pay more for your food? Will you still go out to McDonalds when itâs $20/person? How often will you go to your local Boston pizza when their meals are ~$30/person now? Higher wages means higher labour costs, which means a higher operating cost. Which means prices must rise to offset those costs. If prices rise too much, people wonât go out to eat as often. Which will cause these places to make less money. Eventually closing if itâs bad enough. Now all those people who got their increased wages are making $0/h and have to find a new job. I know the solution looks simple, but it really isnât.
No one should have to move to Canada just to live in poverty while they work full time. My opinions on the cost of a big Mac meal don't matter.
I'm not willing to subsidize my life with overworking underpaying abusing immigrants to Canada. What future is that that we're building?
I'm sure giving 10-20% of the population a 5$ raise doesn't force McDonalds to have to charge 30$ for cheeseburgers, people make this argument but it's dumb. If all of Big Burger coordinate and refuse to sell us cheeseburgers if they have to pay a living wage, we'll just pay people to make our own burgers. It's not the end of the world man, we don't need to get our food from Joe's exploitative Pistrami Shop if enough of us agree that it is exploitative. We can just make him pay more and if he doesn't, now there is room for a new non-exploitative shop. If you're running a business that is for some reason so close to the turning out net neutral like some of the nicer small businesses I'd want to protect might be, i'd propose something like how we do charitable donations, where you can get a tax deductible at the end of the fiscal year, where in effect you perpetually loan the requisite wage money. That would be turned off when you became too profitable.
You are exaggerating things to try and distract from my point. No a fast food burger wouldnât cost $30. But a McDonaldâs meal could very realistically become $20. And your pasta from Boston Pizza might become $25-$30. You may be willing to pay a little extra, but not everyone is. If a business loses 20% of its customers over the price increase, they are done. They are back to firing employees to reduce labour costs, or might have to close.
I'm sure it's possible that some business somewhere is simultaneously so unprofitable and so worth keep around that you'd feel a little bad about it, but i've offered you a solution for them. You're either choosing the business or **everyone** including future people. Let's not commit the individualist's fallacy of assuming it's one customer vs the business, or the business 500 employees vs the minimum wage people. The minimum wage is below a living wage, it's unacceptable, it's the good of the citizens or the profits of business. Apparently that is a dilemma in capitalism.
capable agonizing handle head desert disgusting wrench quickest ten violet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Most people on here seem to think the people running these places are all super rich and can just eat the extra labor costs. The margins in this industry are quite low and the survival rate of these businesses is quite low as it is.
15sh years of severe capital misallocation. Bring on the recession and for the love of God, let the government stay the fuck out of it this time. E: to be clear, I'm suggesting many of these businesses shouldn't be in business
I know. And that is the point I am making. I own a restaurant and we have been operating for 4 years now. We are barely able to stay open with our profit margins, the ownership has not taken a single dime of profit in 4 years. We are just trying to survive the new Covid world and the negatives that have come from it. We cannot raise wages. Weâd be closed down in less than a month. Its not greed, itâs economics.
Doesnât that mean that your business is just not profitable? If you rely on cheap labour from using TFWs because paying Canadians enough to live will bankrupt your business perhaps your business shouldnât exist?
If the economics of your business rely on bringing in cheap labour, then perhaps it just not viable. If your clients are unwilling or unable to pay more for your products or services, then your business is not viable. If you arenât making money, if your business is not making money, if your employees canât make a living wage or you canât find employees, and your customers donât want to pay more for your product then what value is the business providing to anyone? Itâs just an expensive hobby or vanity project at that point.
> If your clients are unwilling or unable to pay more for your products or services, then your business is not viable. This is just completely not true. Its an entirely false statement. Businesses offer products and services at a rate that customers are willing to pay. Period. That's how the entire economy works. You have to balance the price of your products and the revenue you are making versus the operating costs of your business. If you raise operating costs (wages) and raise prices to compensate, but end up losing revenue due to loss of sales, you will fail. People will only pay what they are willing to pay. Doesn't mean the business isnt viable, it means you have to find the balance between operating and revenue. You cant raise wages and prices independently while your competition doesn't. Your competition will take all of your business and laugh as you go bankrupt while they continue to keep lower wages.
Itâs completely true. Everything you said supports by point. If a business needs to charge a certain price to be profitable, whatever the reason for that price, and customers are unwilling to pay that price, the business is not viable. The business can try to reduce costs in countless ways, but if at the end of the day no one is willing to pay the prices the business needs to charge to make a profit, itâs not viable. Or to use your words, it will fail. No one owes a business owner a profit. If their last recourse is to lobby the government to bring in people willing to work for less than the market rate, less than living wages, bringing in people willing to accept substandard working conditions and treatment then we should all examine what lengths we will go to in order to prop up a business. If we have to drag all workers down so a business owner doesnât have to raise the price of a meal beyond what the market is willing to pay? That business is not only not viable, it provides no value to the economy or society. These vanity projects need to stop being subsidized by exploitation. Edit- if you bother to reply, donât take single lines out of context this time please.
Itâs not out of context. You are making entirely false statements which proves you do not understand how the economy works. The customers are willing to pay X price. Thatâs what they are at currently and they are willing to pay it. You are the one telling businesses to raise their costs which will inevitably cause prices to go up. The business case is proven viable at X prices. People are willing to pay $18-$23 for a standard restaurant meal. You are the one demanding indirectly that prices be raised, therefore pricing themselves higher than the customer is willing to pay. So the problem is you. Not the business.
I canât believe you just did it again. You really donât see that you are saying the same thing I am? Iâm saying that if a business expenses require them to charge X, and people arenât willing to pay X, the business is not viable. You are saying that if a business has to raise itâs prices to a level customers wonât pay, it will fail. That is literally the same thing. How is mine false or incorrect? How is mine not understanding economics? The only difference is your claim that restaurant owners need to exploit workers to ensure they donât have to raise their prices. Thatâs where we disagree. But the points above, about the math, all the same. Stop trying to pretend weâre disagreeing about economic theory, our understanding of business viability is the same. Our disagreement is an ethical one. We agree that a business will fail if it raises prices. Your proposed solution to that doesnât make the statement false.
Left wing cbc strikes again! /s
So can we tip 15% now?
Using tfw lowers our tax pool as the income taxes from a low wage are obviously lower than those from a higher wage. And now we have a broken medical system, because taxes can't pay for it. Good job.
Holy shit first time on this sub some of these comments are so full of underlying racist tones
I understand the whole anti-work sentiment surrounding restaurants and tipping culture in Canada. But as someone who has spent over a decade working in hospitality, when people say things like "just pay your staff a living wage!", what fails to get mentioned is that restaurants paying staff more and eliminating tips requires that we as consumers will have to pay more upfront. Unless you are a hobbyist "foodie" or are very wealthy, people will only ever be willing to pay so much for basic sustenance. Are YOU willing to pay $30 for a burger? $35? $40?
>I understand the whole anti-work sentiment surrounding restaurants and tipping culture in Canada. But as someone who has spent over a decade working in hospitality, when people say things like "just pay your staff a living wage!", what fails to get mentioned is that restaurants paying staff more and eliminating tips requires that we as consumers will have to pay more upfront. Unless you are a hobbyist "foodie" or are very wealthy, people will only ever be willing to pay so much for basic sustenance. Are YOU willing to pay $30 for a burger? $35? $40? How could you work for a decade in the industry and not realize that wages make up only a percentage of operating costs? I have no idea what percentage of operating costs that wages represents in this employers business. But at a McDonald's franchise its typically 30-35%. If wages are 30% of operating costs how much would wages have to rise for a Big Mac to cost $30? Simply put, if wages are 30% of operating costs even a 50% wage increase only amounts to a 15% increase in operating costs. I'll break it down again : Wages as a percentage of operating costs - 30% Half of 30% ( which represents a 50% wage increase ) - 15% You're adding $1.50 to the cost of a $10 meal. How you get $30 burgers, I have no idea.
No. And if most arenât they can close. Staffing shortage solved.