At the recent Hotel Data Conference, Sarah Quinlan, founder of SAQ Economic Advisory, asked the audience a relatively simple question.
“Tactfully, the government says there is one available job for everyone looking for one. How many people [among you] have posted a job with no intention of filling it?”
Numerous hands shot up.
I am not claiming audience members were conducting hiring exercises to go through the motions, but the reasons others might do so could be to project a heathier company to investors and/or to give hope to overworked employees that soon the cavalry is coming.
It could also be done to satisfy legal requirements when all along someone internal — and no doubt deservingly so — is the only candidate on the shortlist.
Quinlan spoke to the HDC attendees in the days following the announcement that U.S. job numbers had fallen in July by 23,000 when analysts predicted they would rise by 83,000. She also pointed to what she said is a “low hire, low fire” economy.
“It is stagnant. I hope you do not have kids coming out of college and looking for a job. If they cannot find a job, they do not spend.”
The fun of listening to an economist is that her or his answers can always be met with another set of questions, scenarios, counterbalances and the like.
It is complicated, and any sector needs to concentrate on what those who are here can spend, which will lead to what is wanted remaining and what is not wanted disappearing.
That is oversimplifying things, and as always, the devil is in the details.
The cost burden on everyone means fewer children are being born, 1.6 children per woman of “childbearing age,” according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Quinlan did the math and said 2.1 children are needed to replace us.
Some countries such as Japan have seen every sharper decreases in births (1.14 children), although John Hopkins adds U.S. births still outpace deaths.
The U.S. National Center for Health Statistics states U.S. births decreased by approximately 11.15% between 2000 and 2025.
In the same period, the U.S. population increased by 10 million to approximately 349 million.
We’ve seen that is not due to births.
It must still be net immigration, something the hotel industry has always championed.
The bottom line is that there continues to be a heightened battle, struggle and competition to attract labor to one’s industry, even if each business might likely be hiring fewer people than they traditionally have.
That means higher wages, I imagine, which might mean greater spending. Although a lot of anything in addition seems to be increasingly allocated to rent and food.
As I get older, I have increasingly seen a can being kicked down the road, but perhaps it has always been like this.
We’re not really inventing anything new.
AI essentially is the latest thing in a line of “innovations” getting shareholders excited, but it could be argued none of it is new, and Quinlan added even this much-touted innovation is failing to get Americans excited.
“Only 58% of Americans invest in the S&P 500,” she said, referring to all industries, not just artificial and intelligent ones.
Intelligent hoteliers are the ones reaching out to women, she added, who might be having fewer children but are making more decisions for themselves and for their families.
She said hoteliers are in a sweet spot as — as we know — travel demand remains robust.
“Know your customer, and that is where your data comes in,” she said.
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