'We all quit! Sorry for the inconvenience': Family dollar store is forced to shut as ENTIRE staff resign - as Biden's unemployment payments mean workers refuse to take low-paying jobs
A Lincoln Family Dollar was left with no employees after the last remaining cashier left a farewell note that read 'We all quit. Sorry for the inconvenience'
A Nebraska Family Dollar was forced to close after its entire staff walked out in protest against the management - leaving a final farewell note to customers just like staff at a nearby Burger King weeks before.
The last two employees of the Lincoln discount store walked out on Sunday, leaving a farewell note on it's front door that read: 'We all quit. Sorry for the inconvenience.'
The note was the same as one put up by Burger King staff in the same city, who used the restaurant's giant advertising board to announce that they were all leaving.
It comes amid inflated unemployment benefits under the Biden administration's covid relief plan, which give payments $300 a week higher than they were before the pandemic.
Bosses across the country have hit out at the payments, saying they are struggling to attract staff.
The Family Dollar store's assistant manager, Breanna Faeller, told Fox 5 News that by the time their note went up, she and the cashier were the only two remaining employees.
She said issues at the Family Dollar started a few months ago when all the store cashiers and the other assistant manager left due to issues with the manager.
The store's assistant manager, Breanna Faeller, told Fox 5 News that by the time the note went up the cashier and her were the only two remaining employees
Faeller said issues at the Family Dollar started a few months back when the store cashiers and the other assistant manager left due to issues with the manager
The note was the same as one put up by Burger King staff in the same city, who used the restaurant's giant advertising board to announce that they were all leaving.
'The working conditions were so bad because it was a never-ending cycle of trying to play catch up with everything,' she said. 'We had five employees, max, at all times. You can't run a whole store with five employees.'
The quest for new employees was unsuccessful due to low pay and long hours.
'We couldn't keep any cashiers hired because they only made $10 an hour and it definitely wasn't worth the pay for everything we had to expect them to do,' Faeller said. 'They are only supposed to work up to 20 hours a week and they were working 35-40.'
Faeller said new hires would only last a few days and she even recalled a recently hired employee going to the bathroom and never returning.
The final straw for the mother of two came after her manager quit last week which left her working 11-hour days, seven days a week.
On top of the grueling schedule, air conditioning at the store was on the fritz and the bathroom was out of order.
The store's assistant manager, Breanna Faeller, told Fox 5 News that by the time the note went up the cashier and her were the only two remaining employees
She says that by the time the final employee put up her sign after quitting, she felt a certain sense of relief.
'I had no more stress wondering if I was going to be the only one working that day,' she said. 'I felt horrible at the same time, I had a lot of regular customers that I enjoyed talking to every day but I just couldn't do it anymore.'
DailyMail.com reached out to Dollar Tree for comment.
Fox 5 reported that the store has since reopened since the incident.
This mass quitting comes after a Burger King in Lincoln went viral on social media after the staff put up a sign on the restaurant's advertising board with the exact same message: 'We all quit. Sorry for the inconvenience.'
Employees at the franchise claimed it had been understaffed for months, while they have had to work in a kitchen with no air conditioning, even as temperatures reached above 90-degrees.
Now ex-general manager Rachael Flores said employees decided to pull the stunt after she put in her two-weeks notice earlier this month, and eight other employees followed suit, she told KLKN.
They wanted to put up a sign to say, you know "Sorry, there's really not going to be anyone here,'" Flores recounted. 'Just kind of a laugh at upper management.'
Experts say there is not a shortage of available workers, but people are more comfortable finding a higher-wage job following the pandemic. In May, activists participated in a 'Wage Strike' outside a restaurant in Washington, D.C.
They joked on July 9 that they should put up a sign outside the store in the Havelock neighborhood telling customers the store wasn't open because they all quit.
The next morning, the employees followed through with their plans, she said.
'I didn't think anyone was going to notice it, because we just did one sign,' she said, and then it went crazy on Facebook.
'I got a call from my upper management, and they told me I needed to take it down.'
In response, though, Flores said she told the upper management that she could not take down the sign as she was already short-staffed, at which point they told her to leave - one day before her official last day.
Flores shares similar stories as Faeller of poor working conditions driving away staff, claims a Burger King spokesperson said the company would look into.
'The work experience described at this location is not in line with our brand values,' Burger King told Dailymail.com in a statement. 'Our franchisee is looking into this situation to ensure this doesn’t happen in the future.'
The walk-outs come as workers throughout the country refuse to take low-paying jobs.
Some job seekers have openly admitted that they are not interested in returning to work until the federal unemployment supplement of $300 per week expires nationwide next month.
The combined benefits can total as much as $600 a week in some states.
It is not just conservative critics who see that as a problem. A recent Bank of America analyst note said the cash meant anyone earning less than $32,000 before the pandemic would be better off taking the benefits instead of working.
U.S. employers posted a fresh record 10.1 million job openings in June, as companies struggle to lure workers back into the job market and fill open positions.
Job openings, a measure of labor demand, rose by 590,000 to 10.1 million on the last day of June, the Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, on Monday.
Hiring also rose to 6.7 million in June from 6.0 million in the prior month. Yet the latest data show that 8.7 million remain on unemployment benefits, meaning there are more jobs available than job seekers for the first time since the pandemic began.
The gap between openings and hiring suggests that firms are scrambling to find workers, as many firms resort to hiring incentives such as signing bonuses and childcare assistance. A record low 1.3 million people were laid off or fired in June.
Total job openings in the US exceeded 10 million in June for the first time, as companies struggle to lure workers back into the job market and fill open positions
Restaurants have the highest job opening rate at more than 10%, while worker shortages in trucking have spurred supply chain disruptions nationwide
On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the economy generated 943,000 net new jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent from 5.9 percent in June.
But as the economy rebounds from the devastation of the pandemic, the recovery has been hampered by labor shortages in a variety of key fields.
Trucking has been particularly hard hit by a shortage of workers, leading to supply chain disruptions across the country.
The transportation, warehousing, and utilities sector had 460,000 unfilled openings in June, a 48 percent increase from a year ago, according to the new data.
Trucking leads the way in trying to lure job applicants with incentives, with 16.1 percent of Indeed driving job postings offering hiring incentives, according to Axios.
The share of job postings on Indeed with hiring incentives is at 4.3 percent, up from 1.8 percent in July 2020, with 14 percent of dental jobs, 12.2 percent of nursing jobs and 11.5 percent of veterinary jobs offering perks for new hires.
The worker shortage in restaurants and retail stores is even more dire. The accommodation and food services sector had 1.4 million openings in June, an 85 percent increase from a year ago, while retail trade opening were up 75 percent to 1.1 million.
In the restaurant industry 10.2 percent of all positions remained unfilled in June, the highest rate of any sector, according to the report.
Many businesses blame generous federal unemployment benefits - including an extra $300 a week tacked on to regular state jobless aid - for discouraging Americans from seeking work.
In response, many states have dropped the federal unemployment assistance even before it is scheduled to expire nationwide on September 6.
Many Americans may also be staying out of the job market because of lingering health fears and trouble obtaining childcare at a time when many schools are closed.
Adding to the problem is a sharp decline in the labor force participation rate, the percentage of the population is either employed or seeking a job.
The overall US labor force participation rate, which has been declining steadily for two decades due in part to demographic shifts, stood at 61.7 percent in July, a rate lower than it had been before the pandemic since the 1970s.
The prime age labor participation rate for those aged 25 to 54 stood at 81.8 percent, down from 83 percent in January 2020.
Sylvia Allegretto, a University of California at Berkeley labor economist said the United States isn't facing a labor shortage. It is instead facing a 'wage and benefits shortage.'
'There's simply no labor shortage when you're talking about finding house cleaners for a hotel,' she told the Los Angeles Times. 'There is a shortage of workers who want to work at what you're offering.'
'While unemployment benefits were helpful during the pandemic to keep laid off workers afloat, the fact that many are now making more money sitting on the couch than being back at work is creating an unbelievable labor shortage for small businesses,' said Job Creators Network president Alfredo Ortiz.
'The Democrats should realize times have changed and reduce unemployment benefits accordingly.'