"Serving Up a Recession"

We know that public employees, retirees, and recently hired-and-then-fired workers have been hit hard by the recession. Radio, TV and newspapers discuss it every day. It's old news.

But why has the media ignored all of the young people who have been smacked by this downturn? Some high school graduates can't find jobs, period. Or if they find one, it pays the minimum wage. Forget benefits, sick days and vacations. Many other young people are being forced to drop out of college, move back in with family members, and/or scramble to find second or third jobs.

Young people employed in the service sector, for example restaurant workers, have been especially hard hit by the recession. When other people stop spending on non-essential goods and services, like going out to have a beer in a bar, that, in turn, affects the jobs and wages of the bartenders, busers, the waiters and waitresses.

We spoke with two young women working in the food service industry in Colorado and New Jersey in order to understand how young people are surviving in this recession. Constance  is 26 years old, lives in Colorado, and has been working as a barista for six years. In addition to working as a barista, she teaches yoga and recently opened a small yoga studio with another teacher. She does not have a college degree. Sarah is 34 years old and lives in New Jersey. She worked in the food service industry for 10 years as a waiter and bartender. She earned her college degree at age 32 and is currently pursuing an MA.

How the Recession Has Changed Work

We started by asking both women when they first noticed the effects of the recession. Constance first noticed the downturn during the holiday season. "It was pretty drastic," she says. "We tend to do very well selling machines and large items." But by Christmas 2008, she says, "Our store just wasn't selling as many big ticket items. People bought smaller gifts under $20." In addition to less spending, Constance also noticed that her store was much "slower in terms of customers" than it had been in previous holiday seasons. For Sarah, "the slowdown was more gradual."  Once it started to take a toll on the restaurant's volume, though, her co-workers became acutely aware of it. "And management reminded us of it every day," says Sarah.

With fewer customers and less sales volume, Sarah and Constance's employers both implemented belt-tightening measures. Right after the holidays Constance's company cut her hours. "I used to work over 35 hours per week. I ended up getting dropped to 20 hours/week for a while."  When she asked her manager about the hours, Constance was told, "The corporate office gives our store about 300 labor/hours per week, which the store can dole out to employees as it pleases." Before the recession, the store used to promise supervisors 35 hours and baristas 30 hours a week. But since sales started slowing, that all changed. "There's no set standard number of hours anymore." Another result of the recession, according to Constance, is the number of raises that workers get. "We used to get two raises a year, now we get one."

In response to declining customer volume, Sarah says her employer "came up with a lot of fancy ploys to get people in the door, such as '2 for $20 combos' and 'Lunches beginning at $5.99.'"  While these promotions increased the number of customers, and therefore the work, they did not significantly increase workers' take-home pay. "Customers would just order the bare minimum. It was common during lunch to have checks that totaled $11.14. I can't forget that number. Most of the time people would give you $13 and tell you to keep the change. After tip out, that left you with about $1.50. Multiply that by 4, and you just made $6.00 an hour."

As sales continued to drop, Sarah's employer struggled to "keep labor costs down." He sent the kitchen staff home because, he said, "They were paid more." This affected servers like Sarah in a number of ways. First, it increased the amount of work that servers had to do, because they were forced to take on some of the food preparation work of the laid off kitchen staff. It also reduced their tips. "Food would then take longer to come out, and customers would blame the servers, so tips became smaller."

Frustration @ Work

As the recession deepened, Sarah and Constance both became increasingly demoralized at work. After her hours were dropped down to 20 per week, Constance "had to fight with my manager to get more hours."  While she eventually got back up to 30 hours per week, not all of her co-workers were as lucky in getting more hours, despite asking for them. Hustling for hours has created tensions between her co-workers. "People are constantly fighting for hours," she says, and that has undermined the normally friendly, social environment at her workplace.

Like Constance, Sarah felt frustrated and somewhat hopeless at work. Because "bills don't decrease during a recession," Sarah started working several double shifts per week. She would set herself a minimum take-home for each day based on what she needed to earn to cover her monthly expenses. "I wouldn't leave work until I reached it." As a result, Sarah would often go in at 9:00 a.m. and stay until 1:00 a.m., "Just to make $100 for the night." After a few months, it became clear that, as she says, "I was working harder, for less money." Despite the long hours, "My credit card debt was high, savings depleted. That period of time was the worst financial situation I had ever been in."

What Can We Do?

In the face of these hardships, Sarah, Constance and many of their co-workers believed that there were few options available, to improve their individual situations. At Constance's workplace, she says, "Everybody is so frustrated and wants to leave, but we can't because there are not a lot of options." One of her co-workers says {s}he "Wants to get laid off to be able to collect unemployment." Many of her co-workers plan on "sticking it out for now, because it's hard to find another job." Constance cites good benefits as the reason that she is going to stay with her current company for the near future.  "I get full medical, dental and vision for $40/month, and that's hard to give up." You seldom find such a deal in the food industry.

Some of Sarah's co-workers left the restaurant for that they said were "Jobs where the money was guaranteed," mostly in retail. Others worked two jobs. For example, one of her co-workers would work at UPS from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.. "Then he would come straight to the restaurant where he'd nap in a booth for a few hours, and then work from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.  I still don't know how he managed."

Constance has considered going back to school, in the hopes that a college degree will lead to better job prospects. After six months of 12-hour workdays, Sarah left her job and enrolled in an MA program.  Sarah was able to secure a relatively secure, good-paying job at her university, but most of her co-workers were not so fortunate.

These two women's experiences show that young workers are hurting from the economic downturn just as much as older workers. They are facing layoffs, reduced hours and declining wages, especially in food service, where so much of workers' income is dependent on tips.  Unlike older workers, though, many young workers do not have a spouse or partner who can support them if they lose their jobs.  Many {college students or graduates} live hundreds, if not thousands of miles from their parents, making moving home not a very viable option. And while many young workers want to go back to school to improve their job prospects, the rising cost of tuition and living expenses keep this option out of reach of many young workers.

What else can be done?  One option is to get involved with a group that advocates for fair treatment of young workers, like Young Workers United in San Francisco. Another option is to organize unions in the workplaces, or try to secure a unionized job in an industry that hires many young workers.  Another option is to join the growing movement to lower the cost of higher education (See the recent article by Liza Featherstone).  

What else do you think that young workers can or should do in these tough economic times? Do the experiences of the two women profiled in this article resonate with your own work experience in the service sector?  Add your two cents in the comments section below!

Thanks to Sarah and Constance being interviewed, and Blake for conducting one of the interviews!