Rep. Strom: Restaurant industry's hiring problem due to better-paying jobs elsewhere

Restaurants and other service industry businesses aren't having trouble hiring employees because people don't want to work, but because they've found better-paying jobs, said state Rep. Judd Strom, R-Copan, in a recent Facebook post.

"When you see the Help Wanted signs, consider the idea that they're not there because people don't want to work anymore," he wrote. "They're there because the people that left those jobs found a better job."

In fact, he believes would-be employees are finding these "better jobs" in Oklahoma's relatively new medical marijuana industry.

Medical marijuana jobs pay two or three times the amount of typical restaurant wages. Employees also enjoy a "far less stressful work environment and a much more amiable clientele," Strom said.

The National Restaurant Association reports more than 7,000 restaurants and drinking establishments in Oklahoma. Per ZipRecruiter, those jobs pay an average employee wage of $11.18 per hour, he said.

Compare that to more than 8,000 marijuana grow operations in the state with an average pay of $17 per hour, and more than 2,000 medical marijuana dispensaries with an hourly wage of $23.69, Strom said.

Read more: https://www.examiner-enterprise.com/story/news/2021/09/05/rep-strom-restaurant-industrys-hiring-problem-due-better-paying-jobs-elsewhere/5732650001/
(Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise)