(November 16, 2007) This week, we;ve been looking at the possibility of "conflation" an economic circumstance where there is low unemployment, an economic downturn and high inflation. The San Francisco Chronicle offers food for thought (so to speak).
When Mourad Lahlou has an opening for a line cook at his San Francisco restaurant, Aziza, he gets plenty of resumes. But most of them are from recent cooking school graduates who don't have the moxie to survive on the hot line at one of San Francisco's busiest restaurants.
Lahlou is not alone. Craigslist has dozens of help-wanted listings from the Bay Area's top restaurants - all vying for the dwindling numbers of experienced cooks willing to put in long, hard hours for pay that barely covers their cost of living.
"They say they have all these bills and have to pay the rent, and they can't be making $12-$13 an hour," Lahlou said.
That crunch, plus many young cooks' expectations of the "Top Chef" high life, are just two of the factors that may make San Francisco's unique mix of chef-owned high-quality neighborhood restaurants a thing of the past. (SFGate)
The story goes on to cover the job hopping that makes it possible for young chefs to find jobs that pay adequately:
Although he was gaining great new skills at Delfina, last month Clevenger moved back to Seattle, where he's been offered a resort kitchen management job at nearly three times as much pay. (SFGate)
The regional nature of recruiting and work make situations like this one a bellwether. The symptoms of conflation are precisely regional just as the relative impact of housing inflation has been regional.