Linchi Kwok, Ph.D.

Earlier this year, we brought up an argument that rising food prices could give restaurants an edge because the price gap between dining out and cooking at home had become narrower ( Kwok, 2022 ). It did not take long for the inflation to finally hit the restaurant traffic.     Inflation in April almost hit the highest level in 40 years   The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 8.3% from 2021 ( Cox, 2022 ). Not only was it higher than Dow Jones estimation at 8.1%, but it remained close to the highest level since the summer of 1982. After removing food and energy prices, the core CPI still rose 6.2%, still higher than the anticipated level of 6%. Because of the record-high inflation, workers’ real earnings dropped 2.6% year to year despite that the average hourly earnings had increased 5.5%. The unexpected high inflation in April also cast doubts on the market about whether the inflation “peak” in March had really hit the ceiling.      Restaurant traffic, especially drive-thru, drop

Over the past two years, the hospitality industry has had to make major changes to deal with the many difficulties it has faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The most notable hurdle for the hospitality industry has been the labor shortage. With the dangers of COVID-19, it has been increasingly difficult for hotels to find and keep employees, causing the hospitality industry to make adjustments in order to compensate for the loss of on-sight workers. This leaves us with the following question, will the hospitality industry ever go back to the way it was before the pandemic? While things are opening back up after a long battle with Covid-19, the hospitality industry is still struggling to find and keep employees. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2020), the amount of leisure and hospitality workers pre-pandemic was roughly 16.2 million employees in March 2020. A month later, the number of all employees dropped to 8.7 million, nearly half of what it was before. Currently,

     The hotel industry is one example of many industries that were hit by the influence of COVID-19. The impact of the coronavirus on the lodging industry has been enormous, with travel-free environments leading to a drop in overall metrics for hotels around the world and a significant decline in monthly hotel revenue per available room, as well as average daily rates and occupancy. But Pandemic has also reinvented its business, including providing new opportunities for the hotel industry. What changes did the pandemic bring to the hotels? The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to affect changes in the type of travel, accelerating the individualization and miniaturization of tourism activities. As the tourism experience becomes richer, there is a trend of changing from group tourism to individual tourism, and COVID-19 is expected to strengthen the tendency to prefer small-scale individual tourism or free travel that can trust mutual safety rather than group tourism. Furthermore, as the dem

Growing up in a household of first-generation immigrants, my parents had seldomly followed American societal norms. They run a small shop in the heart of Little Saigon in Westminster, CA, selling phone cards, lottery tickets, and water, with a laundromat running in the back. Given that they are a business of 10 employees, my father had never felt the need to hire a Human Resource (HR) Specialist to produce a standardized process of maintaining employee-employer relations. When issues come up, he, as the owner, would need to handle them – from staffing schedules, recruitment processes, as well as disciplinary action. While large corporations have created a system to tackle such issues, most small businesses do not have access to the same resources to resolve similar problems. What issues may arise for mom-and-pop shops without an HR department? Corporations with many employees require structures and processes to maximize their efficiency with conflict resolution and risk management. T

How long has the restaurant industry been treating their sick workers with no guilt? How many times have customers treated workers in the hospitality industry terribly ? As I was browsing online for the perfect article for my paper, I came across an article from Grub Street, “ The Restaurant Industry has always treated sick workers with no remorse ”. As someone who has worked in restaurants for the past years, I can confirm that what this article expressed about this situation was a real thing.  When I used to work at Restaurant X, I never missed one shift, but sooner or later, I realized that other employees would call off because they were feeling sick. I remember my shift supervisors would let the General Manager know about a sick call-out, but in a way, the upper management sounded more bothered than worried because the sick employees could not make it to work. Additionally, this becomes a problem with customers as well because many call-outs create a place with slow service. Custo

The hospitality industry, like other sectors, has been affected by The Great Resignation, one reason that causes low staffing during COVID 19. Currently, many businesses are struggling with low staffing and dealing with higher turnovers. Many workers within the industry were "forced" to reconsider their positions and job roles due to the high demand for work.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a total of 1,705,000 job openings were available in the leisure and hospitality industry in February 2022. Additionally, there were 919,000 job separations in the accommodation and food service industry.  So, why are hospitality companies struggling with recruiting new workers? The main reason why few people apply for hospitality jobs is the amount of mental stress the industry holds. When returning to work, many also began revaluating their occupations and careers. When COVID 19 cases rose, many employees started experiencing an elevated level of stress and job burnout. Gene

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the COVID-19 pandemic caused hardships for individuals and families. During the beginning of the pandemic, “ tens of millions of people lost their jobs.”  Job insecurity has led people and workers to reevaluate their lives and careers, which led to the event known as The “Great Resignation.”  The  Great Resignation  is a pandemic-era event and is named in regard to the  44% of employees  planning to look for a job or those who are already looking for a new job. This pandemic-era phenomenon has made it difficult for businesses that are trying to recover from the pandemic and are not able to find labor as unemployment rates are high and there is a shortage in the labor market.  The most prominent group of people who are willing to resign and move on are those born between 1997 and 2012, or Generation Z. Coincidentally, they are also the ones entering the workforce in the pandemic setting.  Those categorized as Generation Z look for

As of 2022, there is still a noticeable wage gap between men and women.  While a male is earning a dollar, the average female earns around 82-83 cents. Although this may not seem like that big of a difference, women are losing close to 20 cents of their pay compared to their male coworkers. Despite the continuous debate on this issue, for the past 15 years, there has not been much of a change in how the average woman is still earning less than the average man in a similar job. Those who argue for the difference suggest that the reason for this difference is because of the lack of experience or consistency women experience in the work field because of their temporary leave. In a large number of families, women leave or take breaks from their jobs due to raising their families and taking care of the household. Due to this reason, there are many instances where employers are seeing that female workers have been on unemployment for an amount of time. When it comes to performance, there is

For many of us, our lives are an open book, or perhaps more like a daily broadcast to the world of the minutiae of our existence. When I grew up in the Philippines it was all about constantly texting my friends, but when I moved to America, I discovered social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and now the business-oriented LinkedIn. I often ask myself – “do I really need to post a picture of everything I eat or all the places that I go to”?  The reality of oversharing can certainly lead some people to have problems in the work environment or when they apply for a job as it is clear that people today seem obsessed with oversharing their lives on social media. There are guides online for advice as to how often a person should post on social media, but these seem geared to people who try to make a living by being “influencers” or businesses that need product awareness. These sites say that you should not post more than once a day, but they don’t seem to address the issue of the content