Wisconsin’s solution to labor shortage? Teens can work late!

Yinny

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Wisconsin's Senate approves a bill allowing 14 year olds to work as late as 11 p.m., and supporters say it could help plug the labor shortage


Wisconsin's Senate approved a bill on Wednesday that would allow 14 and 15-year-olds to work until 11 p.m. on some days — much later than current laws allow.

Supporters of the bill say it could help plug the state's labor shortage.

Wisconsin currently sticks to federal child-labor laws, which stipulate that people under the age of 16 can only work between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. from June 1 to Labor Day, and between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. for the rest of the year.

The proposed bill would allow this group to instead work from 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on days before a school day, and 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. when the next day isn't a school day.

It has now been sent to the Wisconsin Assembly for approval.

The bill would keep in place federal rules limiting teens to three hours of work on a school day, eight hours on non-school days, and six days of work a week.

It wouldn't cover businesses that have annual revenues of more than $500,000 or workers involved in interstate commerce, who are instead covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

In testimony to the state's Committee on Labor and Regulatory Reform in June, Sen. Mary Felzkowski and Rep. Amy Loudenbeck said that the bill would help small businesses during the busy summer months.

But the fact the bill wouldn't cover companies with large turnovers, or workers who take credit-card payments, was a potential problem that made the bill "very complex from a compliance standpoint," Hillmer said.

Wisconsin currently has nearly 3 million people in employment, per preliminary August data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics – roughly as many as it did before the pandemic hit. But businesses across the state still say they're struggling to find enough workers.

The bill was introduced in April, when the US labor shortage wasn't as bad as it is now. The bill wasn't specifically aimed at the labor shortage.

Some businesses have tapped into younger workers to plug their labor shortage, like a McDonald's in Oregon that's been recruiting 14-year-olds.
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Yinny

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Gen: It looks like they wish to affect hospitality, service industries (best fit for teen worker demo anyway).

The second article was of a business closing because of low-skills and gen labor shortage.

I’d like to see data trends of the reported shortage rate by sector (not just raw employment figures) and how the average/median wage has changed between 2019 and today. I default to a major point being just raise min wage but maybe there are other priorities at hand (if the actual pool of employees is older or has differing life scenarios but still a fit for these roles).
 
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Payday23

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There's no labor shortage. Companies aren't actually hiring. They want the government to bailout
 
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