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« on: January 27, 2021, 06:19:19 PM »
When I owned my business (a veterinary hospital), I paid substantially above minimum wage for good, quality, experienced workers. Our prices reflected it and my customers, for the most part, appreciated it.
But I had so many young people with no experience come to me begging for jobs, but I would tell them I require experience. They all had the same refrain:
"How can I get experience if nobody will hire me because I have no experience?"
Finally, I decided on an experiment that worked out great. I started hiring two promising young people at a time at minimum wage, Which was about half my regular starting salary for veterinary assistants. I told them this was a temporary position that would help them gain experience, but I would require that they put in the effort to learn. I would make these kids clean kennels, sweep floors, clean bathrooms and help help the veterinary assistants and technicians any way they could. Some of these people discovered that working in a veterinary hospital was not as glamorous as they thought and would quit. But some of them proved that they could handle the poop and pee and vomit and endless litter boxes. I occasionally hired some of these people full time at my regular rates, but many of those that I didn't hire were able to apply to other veterinary hospitals and legitimately claim to have "EXPERIENCE!". They were happy. I was happy and my regular employees were happy to have someone to do the dirty jobs of cleaning and disinfecting everything.
When I sold my business, the new owners kept up the program.
However, I talked to them (the new owners) about it today. They said if the minimum wage is boosted to $15/hour, they will probably have to quit offering these entry level jobs and going back to only hiring proven, experienced people. So all those young kids begging for a chance for an opportunity will have to keep looking.
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