Is retail working strickly for peasents now? Trying to understand the world

[BasshunterX]

Why is it that every retail job I see has less than $9 starting pay and usually is only part time? Is retail jobs simply for poor people now? (I do not use this term in a bad light, Just trying to understand the world).

Right now, I work at a Kangaroo gas station making $7.75 an hour and Ive been there for a year (out of laziness). Still only getting 20 hours a week with no breaks on my 9 hour shifts. (Florida labor laws FTW) on top of it being a one-person run gas station with no double coverage.

Its time to take a step up in the world and Im not sure where to go given my resume only has retail jobs. Any tips are welcome. Looking for mass wisdom.

[lokithor]

Odd, my mom makes 10.50 working at a shell as her second job working 24-30 hours a week.

But yeah retail is for the unskilled so they can pay you whatever they want because they know they can just replace you for a cheaper worker.

[Rukentuts]

Why is it that every retail job I see has less than $9 starting pay and usually is only part time? Is retail jobs simply for poor people now? (I do not use this term in a bad light, Just trying to understand the world).

Right now, I work at a Kangaroo gas station making $7.75 an hour and Ive been there for a year (out of laziness). Still only getting 20 hours a week with no breaks on my 9 hour shifts. (Florida labor laws FTW) on top of it being a one-person run gas station with no double coverage.

Its time to take a step up in the world and Im not sure where to go given my resume only has retail jobs. Any tips are welcome. Looking for mass wisdom.

They pay shit because everyone qualifies to work there. High pay is meant to entice qualified workers. When almost every worker qualifies, there's no reason to entice.

They are part time so they can skip on providing benefits. This I see as a bit shady and underhanded.

[KidCanuck]

Get some kind of skilled training. Go to university, college, or trade school. Jobs that require training and / or specialized skills pay more, generally.

[Purlina]

To answer your questions, yes. Those jobs are for the working poor, retired, or students

(Unless you get promoted to a store management level position or higher)

[Vuljatar]

Depends on what you're doing in retail. A low level clerk doing grunt work can't expect to make much, but when you have the experience and initiative to go into management it's a whole different story. I work at a grocery store. Cashiers make about $8 an hour. Department heads make $16 to $22 an hour. Managers make $50,000 to $100,000 per year.

[Bodaway]

There is definitely money to be made in retail but only for those who actually put forth the effort as well as have a little luck in being in the right place at the right time for a promotion or opportunty to move up. The kids that just go and slack off for 8 hours a day won't be the ones making a career out of it although that's probably the majority of what the public sees.

[Reeve]

Why is it that every retail job I see has less than $9 starting pay and usually is only part time? Is retail jobs simply for poor people now? (I do not use this term in a bad light, Just trying to understand the world).

Right now, I work at a Kangaroo gas station making $7.75 an hour and Ive been there for a year (out of laziness). Still only getting 20 hours a week with no breaks on my 9 hour shifts. (Florida labor laws FTW) on top of it being a one-person run gas station with no double coverage.

Its time to take a step up in the world and Im not sure where to go given my resume only has retail jobs. Any tips are welcome. Looking for mass wisdom.

I have a step-brother who works as a store manager for various upper middle class type mall stores (Janie and Jack, Banana Republic, etc.) and he makes approximately $60,000/year. You can make reasonable money doing that for a living, if you're good at it and really put in the effort.

[KCguy]

Peasants? That's pretty harsh. Work is work no matter what it is. The pay is usually pretty bad because most companies do it to screw people over. Just hiring all part timers so they don't have to pay salary/benefits. lol.

[Xeones]

Retail is crap. Most jobs are part time to avoid paying benefits. The pay is low because it takes no education or skill. Even if you become a manager and make more it involves ridiculous hours and you get in trouble for stuff you have zero control over.

[tombstoner139]

Peasants? That's pretty harsh. Work is work no matter what it is. The pay is usually pretty bad because most companies do it to screw people over. Just hiring all part timers so they don't have to pay salary/benefits. lol.

This behavior is reasonable in my opinion. i don't think its done maliciously. companies in the end do get what they pay for.
offer low wages for long periods of time, eventually you wind up with the people who cant get anything better. as long as the business can
tolerate high turnover and bad service, wages will stay low.

[sgprounicycler]

Depends on where the person works in the store. An assistant store manager at Trader Joe's makes between $45,000-$75,000 a year on a 48 hour work week. At the last grocery store I worked at my store director was making a little over $100,000/year before his bonuses. That company isn't doing very well now and they are incredibly top heavy with their work with management so they are running into problems with having way too many high paid employees per store.

[poser765]

As others have said you CAN make a good living in retail. It's just like another job. You show and just muddle through till the end of the day you aren't going to make it very far. If you take some initiative and try to learn some things about the industry you can advance. Store managers tend to make good livable wages and all the district or regional managers I've known have all driven really nice cars.

If I went back into retail I would want to be a contractor for a liquidation firm. Basically you just go in and ensure smooth closure of stores. Jobs can range from a few weeks to a few months with long hours...bell to bell, but the jobs typically pay GREAT. Bank 140k for 4 months of 14 hours day then 8 months off. Sure!

[someotherguy]

Peasants? That's pretty harsh. Work is work no matter what it is. The pay is usually pretty bad because most companies do it to screw people over. Just hiring all part timers so they don't have to pay salary/benefits. lol.

All companies pay only enough for you to stay and not a penny more. It has nothing to do with retail, VP's making 250k at major banks are also paid only as much as needed to keep them. As others described, it is pure [unlimited] supply and demand.

Its time to take a step up in the world and Im not sure where to go given my resume only has retail jobs. Any tips are welcome. Looking for mass wisdom.

Go to college.
Or go to a technical school.
Or get some certifications - whether as mechanic, or IT, whatever (but check if there's demand for it)
Or start your own business doing something you learned at retail. I don't know much of retail, but I'm sure you know something that's useful and can exist as a business.

[Zhangfei]

It's unfeasible to expect everyone to improve their lot through school or starting their own business. The world, including America, needs people willing to work in lower-end jobs whether it's full or part-time. The problem here is that the minimum wage is a joke; if it was bumped up to match real wages, more people would be happy to do it and less likely to complain. 40 hours working anywhere should be enough to give you a modest lifestyle.

[Deleted]

You want certified engineers working the cash register at your 7/11? C'mon.

[Deleted]

A normal retail job requires no formal education, is pretty light work with nearly no real responsibilities attached.
You get there on time and when your shift is over you can simply turn off work, not wasting a single thought on it again.

Its for people that dont want to think and just live or just have not been blessed/cursed with the will to do something greater.

I guess your very old ? if your new employer asks just tell him you were finding yourself, most people have a respect for that

[ShmooDude]

Unskilled positions can only be paid so much. Let me give an overly simplified example:

A delivery only restaurant.

~25% is food costs
~25% is labor costs
~25% is fixed and other costs (fixed being building expenses, equipment expenses, etc)

Most make-line/phone people make minimum wage ($7.25). Drivers make below min wage before tips (and the company isn't giving them the tips so its not factored in). Shift Leaders make ~9/hour and the GM makes I think ~800/week + bonuses (bonuses aren't counted in my labor cost numbers, salary is).

Lets say your current price for what you order is $20.

That means ~$5 of that goes to the food cost, ~$5 is going to labor cost and ~$5 is going to other costs leaving the company with ~$5 in profit.

Now I'm going to double the wages of everyone at the store (I know most of you would prefer I not double say the GM's wages but this makes the math way easier and still makes the point). Note JUST this store.

Now you have the same ~$10 going to to food, fixed and other costs but now you have ~$10 going to labor leaving nothing for profit. What's going to happen is the company is going to raise the prices ~$5 so they're making the same profit as before so your price has gone up from $20 to $26.

If you extrapolate that out to the entire labor force, then that food, fixed and other costs are likely to increase significantly too (because they're all paying their employees more, they have to charge more as well), causing that $25 to go to say $35. Now everyone's pay has doubled, but your cost of living has done almost the same. In this example that minimum wage of 7.25, adjusted for inflation is worth ~$8.29. A wage increase yes, but a minor one.


Now, granted this is overly simplified and the numbers are not necessarily in any way accurate but it gets the point across. Now, you can argue that their profit margins are too big or they're making too much money, but even if you cut their profits down, prices will still go up as wages go up and we're only slightly better off than when we started (if at all depending on the actual numbers).

[Zhangfei]

So if we halve everyone's wages everything will cost half?

No. Not at all. Labour is already dirt cheap in America; you'd actually make a healthier economy with a raise in minimum wage as there'd be more spending money for a huge proportion of the population.

[Kivimetsan]

Why is it that every retail job I see has less than $9 starting pay and usually is only part time? Is retail jobs simply for poor people now? (I do not use this term in a bad light, Just trying to understand the world).

Right now, I work at a Kangaroo gas station making $7.75 an hour and Ive been there for a year (out of laziness). Still only getting 20 hours a week with no breaks on my 9 hour shifts. (Florida labor laws FTW) on top of it being a one-person run gas station with no double coverage.

Its time to take a step up in the world and Im not sure where to go given my resume only has retail jobs. Any tips are welcome. Looking for mass wisdom.

If you don't like the pay, the shit hours and zero breaks, you should find somewhere else, rather than expect the government to hold your hand and make a law dictating a property owner how he may or may not use resources.

On topic:

Yeah basically we live in a time where you either go college and be successful or don't and be poor. This is the result of massive government corruption in relation to huge debts and the wasting of tax dollars on paying off debts to other countries. Blame your government, if they didn't fuck you over so much, businesses would be prospering and paying much higher wages.