On Monday, the national restaurant chain Red Robin announced it would eliminate busboys at all of its 570 restaurants, as the company expects it will save $8 million in 2018 by doing so. Red Robin’s chief financial officer Guy Constant told attendees at the ICR retail conference, “We need to do that to address the labor increases we’ve seen.”
Michael Saltsman, director of the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), told FOX Business, “I read that as minimum wage. Somebody like Red Robin, which has a lot of exposure in western states [where the minimum wage is rising faster] … this is sort of a burger and beer chain. If they can’t pass those increases off in higher prices … they have to find a way to do more with less.”
851Franchise.com editor-in-chief Nick Powills added, “From a business standpoint, [Red Robin made a] very smart move. From an employee standpoint, you just cut out $8 million worth of labor. The interesting thing about the minimum wage hike is that those that made the decisions to do it, did it on behalf of the employee … when intentions are good, and you can’t appease everybody, someone is going to eventually be on the short [end of the] stick.” – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]On January 1, the Canadian province of Ontario raised its minimum wage from $11.60/hour to $14/hour. How are businesses responding? Probably exactly how you would expect.
According to the Bank of Canada, because of the forced wage hike there will be an estimated 60,000 fewer jobs available in Ontario by 2019. Not just that, businesses are beginning to do what businesses do: react to changes in the market. Both Pizza Hut and Subway — to name a few — notified their customers that prices would increase as a result of the minimum wage hike
According to Aaron Aerts and Laura Jones of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, “The negative impacts will ripple throughout the economy: layoffs, reduced hours and fewer opportunities for young workers; higher prices for consumers; increased automation; and reduced investment. Pretending these impacts don’t exist is fa-la-la-la-la economics.” – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″]