Came across this @ Nola.com ---
link
"A cutthroat, post-hurricane labor market has sent wages skyrocketing in the fast-food industry and prompted some of the New Orleans region's biggest chains to offer workers thousands of dollars in signing bonuses, perks typically associated with higher-paying white-collar jobs.
Burger King recruiters have been visiting federal disaster recovery centers and newly reopened high schools offering a $6,000 bonus, paid in monthly installments, to anyone promising to work full-time at a metropolitan New Orleans restaurant for at least a year. New part-time workers are being offered $3,000 bonuses.
Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits has increased hourly pay for cashiers and cooks from just over the federal minimum wage of $5.15 to more than $8, a jump of more than 50 percent.
"I've been in the (fast-food restaurant) business for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this," said Glen Helton, president and chief operating officer of Strategic Restaurant Acquisition Corp., the California company that owns the 54 Burger King stores in metropolitan New Orleans.
Strategic Restaurant has reopened about half of its stores and is ready to open 13 more, but it can't until it hires about 500 more workers, Helton said.
Almost overnight, Hurricane Katrina transformed the bottom reaches of the region's economy from an employer's market where low-wage earners had few options for advancement to a worker's market where job opportunities, and higher pay, abound.
Like many other businesses, fast-food restaurants are struggling to assemble enough workers to reopen stores in Jefferson Parish and parts of New Orleans that escaped devastating floods.
Many evacuated workers have resettled in other cities or can't return because their homes were ruined. Strategic Restaurant, which had a pre-storm work force of about 2,700 in the metro area, has lost about 1,271 front-line workers and 65 managers from the local market, Helton said. Many workers who are willing to return to their old jobs aren't able to come home yet, he said. To make matters worse, competition has exploded for the unskilled and low-skilled workers favored by the fast-food industry. Every employer operating in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is chasing after the same pool of workers, he said. "Now the job market includes anybody doing relief work at $15 an hour. ... Everyone is looking for general laborers, and they are drawing from our normal work force," Helton said.
The changes promise to put larger amounts of money into the wallets and purses of the region's working poor.
Before the storm, a fast-food restaurant employee could expect to earn just over the federal minimum wage of $5.15 as a part-time worker. That would result in take-home pay of $8,000 to $12,000 a year.
Now, that same employee can make as much as $8.50 an hour and work a full-time schedule with regular amounts of overtime hours each week. Retention and referral bonuses for bringing in new workers can raise the worker's yearly income above $20,000.
The higher wages should stick even after the initial post-storm hiring frenzy stabilizes, because the local labor pool will likely remain tight for years to come, said Z.R. Pasby, regional director of operations for Popeyes.
Helton agreed. "I think (wages) will level off, but it will never be a minimum-wage market again," he said. But those wage gains could be eroded if rising pay rates and other factors create inflation in the region and lead to higher costs for food, housing, utilities and other necessities.
So far, Burger King and Popeyes stores have resisted passing on their higher labor costs to customers by raising prices.
"A Whopper cost $2.39 before the storm and $2.39 after the storm," Helton said.
But that could change down the road, especially if fuel prices continue to rise and if higher wages in the area put more disposable income in the pockets of customers, the fast-food managers said.
"Someone has to foot the bill," Pasby said. Keith Darcé can be reached at kdarce@yahoo.com."
Interesting, ain't it? If the housing stays stable, which is a big if, but varies individually, folks could actually come out ahead! thoughts??
