Working in retail may be fun when you are a teenager or a college student because most often, you work for the experience and extra money. You don’t really need to worry about paying rent or buying food. But if you need to do that, you realize that it is not that easy to support yourself with a retail job and after a while, you start to feel it taking a toll on your mental health.
Many people have realized that they don’t need to work if they don’t get paid enough and search for jobs elsewhere, leaving various stores short-staffed. TikToker jessiemaymarie is actually waiting for the retail decline because of how the system works and how nothing is being done to improve it.
More info: TikTok
Someone showed how empty a shopping mall was in the middle of the day on a weekend and this woman thinks that retail is declining
Image credits: JJBers
Jessie May is a mom and fashion lover who likes to share her thoughts on sensitive topics in our society and her video talking about how retail workers are underpaid got quite a lot of views in comparison to the other ones.
The video starts with a stitch with WhatsNextKicks’ footage of a completely empty mall on a Saturday at 4pm when it’s supposed to be the busiest. It is implied that not a lot of stores are working in the mall because of a staff shortage, and the camera stops on signs hanging on the shop windows, supporting the theory.
Image credits: @jessiemaymarie
Jessie May comments on the video saying that she is waiting for the decline of retail because there are so many problems with the culture of retail work. One of the biggest problems is that the jobs don’t pay a livable wage, but they require speed at the tasks the employee does and to be always available to come into work. Many positions are part-time, but the stores often change up the schedules, which doesn’t allow you to plan anything in your personal life.
This sounds like exploitation to Jessie May and she noticed that people have realized they deserved more during the pandemic, so now stores are experiencing a retail worker shortage and, as the woman put it, begging them to work. However, nobody wants to because they are not getting what they want in return.
Even though the woman talks about retail workers because it was relevant to the video she reacted to, she explains that all workers in various industries deserve to be paid more, to be able to live off of their wages and be treated fairly.
She explains that less people want to work in retail because of the low wages
Image credits: @jessiemaymarie
But not only that: the schedules are always hectic, you never know when you may get called in and managers require more than one person can handle
Image credits: @jessiemaymarie
According to the US Chamber of Commerce, aside from the wholesale and retail trade industry, which is experiencing the biggest labor force shortage, the transportation, health care and social assistance, accommodation, and food sectors also have very high numbers of job openings and not enough unemployed people who could fill those positions.
While it is not always the wages that chase off people and it may be that there are actually no specialists for some of those positions, the US Chamber of Commerce noted that the food service and hospitality industries are struggling to retain workers, meaning they quit a lot. They link this problem to those jobs having lower wages as “in more stable, higher-paying industries, the number of employees quitting has been lower.”
Image credits: @jessiemaymarie
She feels that people are being exploited at such jobs and the pandemic only gave them a final push to quit
Image credits: @jessiemaymarie
Because of the pandemic, many retail workers had to leave their jobs because of lockdown and to protect their health. Even though that made their financial situation very unstable, people were forced to look for other jobs and the experience made some of them realize they don’t need to deal with rude customers all day knowing their company isn’t providing them with any benefits to compensate for their hard work.
Especially because now there are more vacant job positions than there are unemployed people. According to the US Labor Department’s June report, there are 10.7 million job openings and 5.7 million people who are unemployed. Before the pandemic, it was always the reverse: there were more unemployed people than available jobs and now, for every unemployed person, there are about 2 job openings.
Image credits: @jessiemaymarie
You can listen to Jessie May’s explanation why she thinks retail is declining in the video below
@jessiemaymarie #stitch with @WhatsNextKicks If they were giving hours and better pay folks would work. Just saying. #fyp #fypシ #viral #retail #thegreatresignation #livablewage ♬ original sound – JessieMay
The job market is changing, people are understanding their worth and businesses need to adapt to attract new employees. But do you think that Jessie May is right and the decline of retail is near? Have you noticed that malls have started to become emptier? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
People in the comments agreed that retail workers aren’t treated as humans and the industry is taking advantage of people who need jobs
The post Woman Points Out How Shopping Mall Retail Businesses Are Begging Folks To Apply For Work, Yet Are Unwilling To Change Their Toxic Approach To Employees first appeared on Bored Panda.
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