[woo49]

The biggest reason is that there has been almost no productivity gain for cleaning a hotel in the last 20-30 years. It takes same amount of time and effort. So why would the wages go up if productivity is not up?

The productivity gains went to either things that got automated (e.g. speciality equipment operator - wages are higher but there are less jobs) or knowledge workers (software engineering salaries have skyrocketed).

[dublinben]

>So why would the wages go up if productivity is not up?

The wages in lots of sectors without productivity gains have gone up because they must compete against sectors where productivity has gone up. This is known as Baumol's Cost Disease.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease

[oramit]

For something like hotel cleaning you also have to take into account the large grey market for labor. There are estimated to be around 10.5-12 million undocumented migrants in the US.

It's not a coincidence that there is a rotating crew of Russian speaking janitors who clean my office building and Spanish speaking landscapers outside my apartment. I'm not discounting that many of them are legal immigrants, just lower skilled and working their way on up. More power to them.

I can also see though how this situation is easily taken advantage of. Contracting firm hires undocumented workers for below market rates and is able to under bid for contracts. Big company fires their in house workers to save money and hires the contracting firm. Big company then gets the advantage of undocumented labor wages without the liability.

[lotsofpulp]

> The biggest reason is that there has been almost no productivity gain for cleaning a hotel in the last 20-30 years. It takes same amount of time and effort. So why would the wages go up if productivity is not up?

Wages are a function of supply and demand. If the people cleaning hotels had better options, their wages would go up (or hotels would shut down, or ask people to clean their own room before they leave, etc.)