Fight for employees forces up starting pay in Boise. Who’s raising wages, offering bonuses
The labor shortage is bringing some welcome news to at least some Boise-area workers: higher pay, choices of job opportunities, and in some cases, hiring bonuses.
It’s also causing headaches for some Idaho employers: an inability to fill positions, limiting opportunities for growth and hurting their ability to do business.
You can’t drive down a major commercial street in the Boise area today without seeing help-wanted signs at fast-food restaurants. With employers desperate for help, the Idaho Department of Labor has organized three Treasure Valley job fairs so far this spring.
“We’re finding it incredibly hard to find people and get new applicants,” said Dodds Hayden, CEO of Hayden Beverage, a Boise beer and wine distributor, which has raised pay in some positions 10%.
Some employers and Republican political leaders blame unemployment compensation, at least in part. Gov. Brad Little on May 11 announced that the latest COVID-19-related extended federal jobless benefits, which supplement regular state unemployment, would be cut off June 19, two months early.
“We want people working,” Little said in a news release. “A strong economy cannot exist without workers returning to a job.”
Clark Baumgartner, the human resources director at D&B Supply, the Caldwell-based farm retailer, said government stimulus money and extra unemployment benefits have hurt the pool of job seekers, but so has growth.
“A lot of people moving here require more services but aren’t necessarily entering the workforce,” Baumgartner said by phone. They include retired people and others who are working remotely for businesses in other states and not filling openings in Idaho.
There are other causes, too, including a child-care shortage that became notably worse in the pandemic, widespread mismatches between available jobs and applicants’ desired careers, and for some candidates, no reliable way to get to and from work.
Job fairs: Lots of employers, not enough candidates
Idaho Central Credit Union, a Chubbuck-based business with 20 Treasure Valley branches, attended a recent job fair in Caldwell hosted by the Department of Labor.
“Compared to previous career fairs, this event seemed to have less candidates, but they were quality candidates,” Eric Johnson, an Idaho Central recruiter, said by email. “Of the candidates that we spoke to, many of them would fit a variety of our hiring needs. Unfortunately, with over 100 employers at the career fair, we were all trying to attract the same candidates.”
Last October, the credit union raised its starting wage to $15 an hour. For some key positions, it is offering a signing bonus.
The department said 104 job seekers attended an April 15 fair in Boise, with 20 getting jobs; 345 attended the May 21 fair in Caldwell; and 91 attended one last Thursday in Boise.
Hayden Beverage is trying job fairs too but with little success, Dodds Hayden said. It’s also advertising on radio and in social media. The company employs more than 500 people in Idaho and Montana and has 76 openings.
Higher living costs mean more selective seekers
Bryon Watkins is a personal trainer making $21 an hour. He came to the Hampton Inn-Boise Spectrum job fair because he wants something with more hours. He planned to apply to three companies he found at fair.
Watkins said his pay expectations have everything to do with Boise’s housing market.
“It’s an easy job market if you just want to work,” Watkins said. “But if you take cost of living into it, if you’re smart and are trying to make a decision based on your future, it’s kind of hard to find a job that way, if you’re calculating finding a home and not renting for the rest of your life.
“That’s why $18 is my minimum. If I take something at $15, I’m going to be renting for a very long time.”
Pandemic makes shortage worse
At Hayden Beverage, the pandemic increased sales of beer, wine and nonalcoholic beverages by 20%, Hayden said by phone.
“Prior to COVID-19, when Idaho ... was still growing faster than darn near any other state in the country, we still had demands, and it was hard to find labor, especially on entry-level, hourly positions, mainly warehouse and delivery,” Hayden said. “COVID just made it more acute.”
That part of the problem may be easing. With restaurants starting to do more business as mask requirements have been loosened and more people have received COVID-19 vaccinations, business is picking up, he said.
Applications rise after Little’s cutoff
“When Gov. Brad Little announced that he was going to discontinue the unemployment-augmented benefits, we saw applications increase,” Hayden said.
Georgia Smith, a spokesperson for the Idaho Department of Labor, said Idaho was the first state to see nonfarm job growth exceed prepandemic levels. Idaho’s unemployment rate is 3.1%. But the percentage of adults participating in the labor force is shrinking.
“We’re hearing from more employers than ever before,” Smith said by email. “Some employers are looking for ideas and help with recruiting employees. Others are frustrated because they believe people who are unemployed are opting to receive federal unemployment benefits instead of returning to work.”
Smith said employers are mostly trying to fill entry-level to mid-level jobs. They say they are looking for workers with a solid work history, strong people and communication skills, along with good computer skills. Experience working in construction or health care is a plus, she said.
“Employers are also getting more creative in the methods they are using to attract employees,” Smith said. “Some are offering hiring bonuses. Many are creating an internal pipeline of trained workers and advancing employees from within as a way to save time and money.
“Other employers are seeing higher retention and less turnover by helping job candidates and employees address barriers that prevent them from finding and keeping a job, like not having the skills or tools they need, limited or no child care, or a lack of transportation.”
Nursing shortage persists
St. Luke’s Health System is looking to hire about 1,000 employees across the system, which covers from Boise to New Meadows, from Baker City, Oregon to Rupert. St. Luke’s employs about 15,000 people.
The health system has not raised starting wages during the pandemic but is offering signing bonuses of between $500 and $1,500 for some positions, said Renee Stacy, director of talent acquisition.
“Nursing is always a challenge,” she said by phone. “There’s a nursing shortage nationally, and so we can never have enough. Experienced nurses are a bit more of a challenge right now in our outlying, more rural sites.”
Stores, restaurants cut hours
Some businesses have been forced to curtail operations.
For the first time in its 88 years in business, Zamzows, the Nampa-based lawn, garden and pet retail chain, cut its hours earlier this month. The company opened its 13 stores across the Treasure Valley an hour later than normal and closed an hour earlier.
“In the past year, our world has been under a tremendous amount of stress,” Zamzows wrote on its website. “Like you, our employees are seeing the negative effects of this stress. Additionally, there is a shortage of people applying for work right now, so our teammates are working overtime, week after week.
“This additional stress, unusual pace, and lack of recovery time has lead us to make the difficult decision to shorten the number of hours that our stores are open during the week.”
The shortened hours only lasted a couple of weeks, and Zamzows is now back to regular hours.
Some McDonald’s restaurants have cut hours too. The McDonald’s now at the chain’s original Boise location at 510 N. Orchard St. posted a sign in mid-May saying that “until further notice” it would be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and Sunday 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Previously, the restaurant was open daily from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on Sunday from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Many McDonald’s in the Treasure Valley in mid-May had a help-wanted signs offering a starting pay of $11. By last week, they were up to $13. The local franchisee plans four parking-lot job fairs Thursday, June 2, to hire more workers.
“The 24 area restaurants along with the under-construction location in Caldwell (opening in early August) are looking to hire 500 new employees in the next months,” said Barbara Schmiett, a public-relations consultant, in an email.
Some Boise restaurants have closed temporarily, including 208 Pho & Vegan, 808 W. Fort St., and Luciano’s, an Italian restaurant at 11 N. Orchard St.
Places that aren’t cutting hours find their small staffs spread thin. Jessica Valencia, a Taco Bell district manager, put a positive spin on what it’s like to try to run a restaurant under such conditions. Fewer employees, said Valencia, means people step up for one another. But that means longer hours for everyone.
“You want to look out for each when there’s less staff,” Valencia said. “You have a core group of people who will put in the extra hours and do the double shifts because of the needs of the restaurant.”
Employers face “wage war”
Today, a Taco Bell restaurant in Boise offers entry-level team members a $12 per hour starting wage. But two months ago? $10 an hour. One year ago? $8.50 an hour.
“There’s a wage war right now,” Taco Bell District Manager Selena McNeal said while working her booth at Thursday’s job fair. “That’s what we’re referring to it as, because you’ll see a lot of businesses, especially the people we compete for employees with, you’ll see them offering something more. So then we up it. And now they’re upping it. And it’s just a brutal battle right now. It’s always, ‘Who’s going to be the one to raise their wages?” McNeal said.
McNeal would like to pay people more, but says it’s hard when customers expect low pricing from fast food. Dollar menus are especially prohibitive to raising wages, according to McNeal.
“I tell these kids, I started at $5.25. Our director scooped ice cream at Baskin-Robbins for 95 cents an hour. So it’s crazy for us to see what people are having to offer now just to even get a team member with no experience in,” McNeal said.
Fast food is not the only industry find itself in that wage war in recent months. Amazon increased entry level employees from $15 to $17.80 an hour in Boise, according to the company website.
Vacancies and recent expansion have left Lactalis American Group, a dairy company in Nampa, with more than 100 job openings. The business runs 24 hours, so night positions are especially hard to fill. A year ago, entry-level positions at Lactalis started at between $13 to $14 per hour. Today, the company offers $15.50 per hour, rising to $16.95 after 30 days.
“You have a lot of companies here looking for over 100 people,” Derek Murray, human resources manager at Lactalis, said as he gestured to the other booths at the job fair. “Everybody’s looking for a lot of people. We’re all struggling to find enough.”
Murray is hopeful that once federal unemployment benefits end, the hiring market will improve.
“I think once that goes away, we’re going to see a huge influx of people, and we’re going to be able to fill these positions,” Murray said.
Free beer for workers
It’s not all about pay anymore. The competitive employee market has resulted in businesses finding new ways to draw in applicants.
A few weeks ago, Amazon began offering Boise employees a $1,000 sign on bonus. And another $100 if you show up to your first day of work with proof of a COVID-19 vaccination. Lactalis has added signing bonuses and significantly upped their 401k match.
Fast food places like Taco Bell are doing the same. They try to create a “culture people want to stay in” by holding team building days. Managers plan activities like floating the river together. On top of Taco Bell’s increased meal discounts and college assistance, bonuses have become an important way for the company to bring in managers.
“We offer a super competitive bonus program. It’s up to $12,000 (bonus) your first year as a general manager. After that, it goes up to $20,000 a year in bonuses,” McNeal said.
Hayden Beverage offers one of the most unique incentives to employees.
“We feel really proud of the benefits we offer,” Dodds Hayden said. “We’ve got a great company culture, health insurance and 401(k).”
And there’s one benefit most other employers don’t offer: “People get a case of beer every month if they’re of age.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
