system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
The optimal number of staff to have is far less than fully staffed, especially in retail and service jobs.

Let's say a big box store would be considered fully staffed at 200 people.  All the work gets done, everyone gets 25hrs/wk.  But that's 5000 labor hours per week you have to pay.  And inevitably, some of those people won't be completely miserable.  They'll have some time to socialize, adequately help customers, and possibly enjoy their jobs.

Now, let's drop that labor force to 150 people.  Everyone gets 30hrs/wk to make up for the lack of staff.  We have to be a little more brutal with our supervision though.  No more chatting with others while working.  No more letting break times spill over past 15 minutes.  We've cut our labor hours to 4500!  That saved 500 hours of labor we had to pay for.  Sure, the checkout lines were slightly longer, and people were ever so more overworked, and customer service took a hit...but we saved money!  And chances are it didn't even reduce our income.

What would happen if we let that work force slide on down to 100 people, and we stuck in some robots to clean the floors and self checkout lanes so customers do some of the labor themselves.  We won't increase hours because we run the risk of having to pay benefits and what not, so everyone sticks at 30/hrs.  We now only used 3000 labor hours.  That's a savings of 2000 hours!  We cut our labor costs by 40%!  So some of the shelves are half empty because our staff can't keep up with stock.  And customers can never find someone to help them.  And our staff are constantly miserable.  And turnover is way higher than it ever has been.  None of that matters because the customers keep coming and we are saving money!

Now ideally, we'd like to hire 100 people to become fully staffed and run efficiently without burning out staff...but the cost of that is too much.  So instead, we constantly hire a trickle of new employees to replace the old ones that quit, got fired, or died.  The goal is to stick right at about 50% staff.  Hire too many and you have to freeze for a bit.  Hire too few and you risk a landslide situation that will be hard to recover from.  This means you are ALWAYS hiring.  You are always taking applications and doing interviews.  You constantly have help wanted signs and advertisements up.  But again, you may not actually be hiring at the moment.  You just advertise to make sure you have fresh meat when you actually need it.  You keep your eye out for super exploitable people.  Young, elderly, people with disabilities, you know, people that are desperate for work, but not able to challenge authority.  People they can walk all over.

If you come in with other priorities, you go to the bottom of the list and only get hired in a crisis situation.  If you state that you can't work evenings/weekends because of kids or school.  If you indicate that you will stand up and defend your rights.  If you indicate anything but total fealty to your potential employer, they won't want you.  Pay close attention to any job with a pre-hire assessment test.  They entire thing is about how loyal you will be to the new employer.  How much are you willing to give up to have that job.

Now they have to keep the act going though.  So they keep talking about no one wanting to work, or staff shortages, etc.  Those are all just corporate buzzwords and dog whistles to keep exploiting the work force.
gpt
Spoken like true management material