WORKERS HERE HAVE PICK OF LOW-WAGE JOBS

If you have any kind of minimum-wage experience, you can switch jobs in Cape Girardeau with the selectivity and frequency of changing clothes.

The reason? The demand far exceeds supply.

"There have been people who have walked out of one place and had a job somewhere else in a couple of hours," Ken Augustine, director of Mid-America Hotels, said. Mid-America owns Burger King, which is part of Drury Restaurants Inc.

"There just doesn't seem to be any loyalty to an employer the way there used to be," Augustine said. Apparently even incentives for excellence aren't able to instill loyalty.

Like many fast-food restaurants, Burger King offers its employees perks to hurdle the minimum-wage standard of $4.25 an hour in a hurry.

"It depends on the person and what kind of background they have, but in most cases we pay more than minimum wage," Augustine said. For full-time workers who are 21 or older, Burger King offers medical and dental insurance.

Augustine said employees who work at least 30 hours a week qualify for these and full-time benefits, and those who are not 21 get holiday and vacation time.

"What more can you offer them?" Augustine asked.

McDonald's Manager Shannon Davis said minimum-wage employees have become scarcer in the past four months than he has seen in his 10-plus years working for McDonald's.

Davis, 27, said the city has a lot of restaurants for its size.

There are 93 restaurants in Cape Girardeau, 13 of which have opened in the past year. McDonald's, Hardees and Ryan's Steakhouse are all on the way.

And, he knows restaurants will need help for the upcoming holiday seasons.

"There are a lot of restaurants for a town this size," Davis, 27, said. "And I'm sure with Christmas coming up, there is an even greater demand for part-time and full-time help.

"But," he said, "today's minimum-wage worker is different. Not everybody believes in the work ethic the way I did when I was growing up."

There are 93 restaurants in Cape Girardeau, 13 of which have opened in the past year. McDonald's and Hardee's each plan to open up one more restaurant and Ryan's Steakhouse is scheduled to open soon.

Davis said McDonald's has wage reviews every six months. In addition, the food chain holds contests for its employees.

"We offer bonuses to the person who sells the most large fries or some other designated item," Davis said. "There are plenty of ways to move past the minimum-wage standard and become a manager here."

What it comes down to, he said, is whether people want to work at it.

"Do you want to sit around and watch Oprah, or do you want to go to work and earn money?" he asked.

Augustine has found that fast-food restaurants aren't the only businesses searching for help.

"You can go all over town and find places looking for help," Augustine said. "I'm talking about places paying $8 to $10 an hour, too."

Jackie Cecil, office manager for the Employment Security Division for Missouri, said the influx of people into the area hasn't kept pace with the growth of manufacturers, retail outlets and fast-food restaurants.

"If you're going to try and resolve this shortage of labor, you're going to have to provide affordable housing and public transportation for people to be willing to move here," Cecil said.

Residential and commercial real-estate prices have risen $10,000, from $71,720 to $81,761, or 8.8 percent from January to October 1993. Low interest rates and a shortage of property have created a market that favors the seller.

The unemployment rate in Cape Girardeau County has fallen to 3.2 percent. Of the 33,039 who are in the labor force, only 1,065 are unemployed, according to the latest survey from the Employment Security Division.

There has been a dramatic drop in unemployment claims from June 30 to September. There were 1,064 new claims last June but only 507 initial claims in September.

"It's not just like that in Cape Girardeau, either," Augustine said. In Bollinger County, the unemployment rate is 4.4 percent. In Perry County, it is 3 percent.

Cecil said there wouldn't be much of an advantage to collecting unemployment benefits rather than working at a minimum-wage job.

First, Cecil said, the unemployment benefits would run out eventually, and the most a person could collect was $175 a week.

And those who were paid minimum wage before becoming unemployed, wouldn't be entitled to the maximum benefit.