Dollar Stores Hit a Pandemic Downturn

Mr. Mushkin said of Dollar Tree: “They have everything going the wrong way.”

Dollar General said it had hired 50,000 additional workers between mid-July and Labor Day, but acknowledged in August that its labor costs were adding to expenses. Analysts say some of these additional expenses are driven by the pressure to raise wages.

Still, the higher pay may not be enough to encourage employees to stay on the job. Workers say the stores are chronically understaffed and rely on part-time workers who are given unpredictable schedules and cannot afford the required employee contribution for health care benefits.

In a statement, Dollar General said, “We pay competitive wages, which are determined based on several factors including the relevant labor market.” The company added that “our operating standards are designed to provide stores with sufficient labor hours, and it is not our expectation that store managers should work 70 to 80 hours per week.”

Part-time workers sometimes encounter the opposite problem of not having enough work. As a store manager, Ms. Beadling said, she was constantly trying to find additional hours to give to her employees who needed the money, including one worker who was living in a tent because she couldn’t afford rent.

But the allotted hours for the store were limited by higher-up managers, she said.

This summer, social media buzzed with photos of dollar stores, from Lincoln, Neb., to Pittsburgh and beyond, where employees had taped up signs in the front door announcing that they had walked off the job.

“Capitalism will destroy this country,” read one sign in the window of a Dollar General in Eliot, Maine, this spring. “If you don’t pay people enough to live their lives, why should they slave away for you?”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/business/dollar-stores-struggling-pandemic.html