These supply chain and staffing issues are getting old

[disneysteve]

I'm really getting tired of a quick trip to the store to pick up a few items turning into running all around town to try and find those few items. I went grocery shopping yesterday at Wegmans and stopped at the pharmacy to buy Claritin-D. They were out of it. I went to Walmart today for one other over the counter medication and the Claritin-D. They were out of the OTC product and the pharmacy was closed for no apparent reason. It wasn't lunch time, when many pharmacies close now, and there were no signs indicating when they'd reopen so I'm guessing that was a staffing issue. I finally was able to get both items at CVS. So it took going to 3 different stores in 2 days to get what I needed. Well at least gas is cheap .

[ua_guy]

It seems like retail pharmacies are struggling. Staffing and maybe drug supply issues. I can't imagine why on the staffing front. It probably really sucks to work in a retail pharmacy and people are just abusive to staff like that in general.

Of note....going to the grocery store this week.....the regular grocery has had full shelves for weeks now. Costco also has completely full shelves. Someone needs to tell their buyer to chill on toilet paper for a while. The TP aisle was so full you could only get one cart between stacks and stacks of TP.

I think supply issues are starting to go away. There are still some

[disneysteve]

It seems like retail pharmacies are struggling. Staffing and maybe drug supply issues. I can't imagine why on the staffing front. It probably really sucks to work in a retail pharmacy and people are just abusive to staff like that in general.

Of note....going to the grocery store this week.....the regular grocery has had full shelves for weeks now. Costco also has completely full shelves. Someone needs to tell their buyer to chill on toilet paper for a while. The TP aisle was so full you could only get one cart between stacks and stacks of TP.

I think supply issues are starting to go away. There are still some

In our area, I'm still seeing plenty of supply issues and staffing issues. Lots of places have reduced hours and services. One of our urgent care sites doesn't do its own x-rays. We use the attached radiology facility. They used to have one of their people escort the patient back and forth. No longer. Due to them being short-staffed, one of our techs now has to escort the patient. Of course, sometimes we are short-staffed too but nobody seemed to care about that.

I've heard rumblings that my place is having difficulty retaining and attracting new staff since Target upped their minimum wage. Instead of coming to work for us, techs are taking jobs at Target making $6/hr more. I certainly can't blame them for that. That's a big difference.

[ua_guy]

In our area, I'm still seeing plenty of supply issues and staffing issues. Lots of places have reduced hours and services. One of our urgent care sites doesn't do its own x-rays. We use the attached radiology facility. They used to have one of their people escort the patient back and forth. No longer. Due to them being short-staffed, one of our techs now has to escort the patient. Of course, sometimes we are short-staffed too but nobody seemed to care about that.

I've heard rumblings that my place is having difficulty retaining and attracting new staff since Target upped their minimum wage. Instead of coming to work for us, techs are taking jobs at Target making $6/hr more. I certainly can't blame them for that. That's a big difference.

I still see staffing issues, sure. I can't blame people for wanting to make more money. More power to them.

[bjl584]

I still see staffing issues, sure. I can't blame people for wanting to make more money. More power to them.

Amen to that.
The "fight for $15/hr" from a few years back was successful in a lot of places, but with inflation today, $15/hr doesn't get you much.

A lot of the arguments that I see online aren't about the money so much as they are about being treated like a human being.
Both by management and by clients.

[GoodSteward]

I just spoke to a store manager in FL that works with our company, and he said people want to make $25/hr but work part-time only. They want the income for a proper full-time job, but they are not willing to actually work. This is to be a sales rep, not any particularly skilled job that required special training. Just good at talking to people.

This same person told me his daughter wanted to see about getting a job. She applied at Amazon and 5 min later got a "your hired" email with a start date making 17.50/hr. Crazy!

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Amen to that.
The "fight for $15/hr" from a few years back was successful in a lot of places, but with inflation today, $15/hr doesn't get you much.

A lot of the arguments that I see online aren't about the money so much as they are about being treated like a human being.
Both by management and by clients.

But if the minimum wage was tied to CPI then instead of $7..25 it would be I heard like $12 before this crazy inflation so it doesn't make $15 seem so ridiculous now does it? I point that out to my mom who says it's too much then she can't disagree. I think Congress need to "Create" work for themselves instead of just fixing the minimum wage by tying it to inflation like SS and then letting it run. NO one could argue then and it'd be resolved.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Supply chain heat map from CNBC.

[ua_guy]

I hope the left-coast ports get opened up and expanded!! That would certainly help...

[bjl584]

I hope the left-coast ports get opened up and expanded!! That would certainly help...

I saw a news report on Long Beach, and it basically said that the system they use there is very antiquated.
Covid exposed a lot of the shortcomings, and now they can't recover.

For instance, there was a rule in place that only certain colors of containers could be handled on certain days.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I saw a news report on Long Beach, and it basically said that the system they use there is very antiquated.
Covid exposed a lot of the shortcomings, and now they can't recover.

For instance, there was a rule in place that only certain colors of containers could be handled on certain days.

Long beach supposedly only have 1 route in and out from the place that storage containers get loaded onto truckers. I have a trucker client who said it's terrible.

[myrdale]

Labor at fast food just blows my mind.

Pretty much ever fast food joint in town is drive through only. They are building 8,000 new housing units in this county I've been told, yet there are not enough people to man the front counter.

[disneysteve]

Labor at fast food just blows my mind.

Pretty much ever fast food joint in town is drive through only. They are building 8,000 new housing units in this county I've been told, yet there are not enough people to man the front counter.

It's a big problem everywhere. Filling those minimum wage crap jobs is getting harder and harder. It's greatly accelerating automation. Dunkin' Donuts just opened their first all-electronic store right down the street from us. You can only order and pay on the app or at a kiosk. There is no cashier. I think we're going to see more and more of this.

[ua_guy]

Perhaps a sign things are catching up?

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-retailers-ballooning-inventories-set-stage-deep-discounts-2022-05-27/

[mumof2]

I find this interesting as here in australia we have never really had any issues with stocks of anything except for a couple months in the beginning of the pandemic, other than that everything has been normal...shelves always full..more expensive now..but we knew that because of the bushfires and the pandemic...plenty of workers...nothing has really changed here..so its interesting to see how diifferent countries are...although we don't get the rude, aggressive people who don't want to wear a mask like the US does