Stephen Kaledecker was psyched when he was promoted in December to regional manager at the hotel chain where he works – but his enthusiasm cratered when gas prices started to skyrocket after the US-Israeli conflict with Iran began earlier this year.
The new job entails thousands of miles of driving each month to properties in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. With the price of gas topping $5 a gallon on his trips, he is spending more than a $1,000 a month on fuel.
That means he will end up losing money, since his raise won’t cover the increased fuel expenses – and his employer won’t reimburse him for mileage once he fully transitions into his new role next month. But he can’t go back to his old position managing a hotel in Ohio, because the role has already been filled.
Having to decide whether to continue as regional manager, which he loves, has left him terrified and crying some nights in his hotel rooms on the road. While he was looking forward to advancing in his career, the Gahanna, Ohio, resident feels he can’t justify it financially.
“It’s going to literally break me,” said Kaledecker, who has already put more than 20,000 miles on his 2018 Chevy Silverado, which he uses to carry equipment and supplies for the hotels, this year. “I look at my bank account and I’m like, ‘Okay, if I go here and do what they ask me to do, I’m not going to be able to get my prescriptions, or I’m not going to be able to pay that electric bill.’”
Kaledecker, 46, is among the American workers feeling the pain from soaring gas prices, which climbed to an average of $4.52 per gallon nationwide on Sunday, up from $2.98 per gallon when the conflict began in late February, according to AAA. Workers with long commutes are being hit particularly hard, forcing some to make tough choices about whether to continue in their jobs. Others are asking if they can work from home more, while still others are narrowing their job searches to minimize the time required in their cars.
A larger share of job seekers are looking for work within a 30-mile radius, said Priya Rathod, workplace trends editor at Indeed, a job search site. The figure rose to 59.2% in April, up from 57.8% in February – a small, but notable, increase, she said.
Overall, however, workers are not making big moves, particularly because the job market has been cooling, she said. And there hasn’t been an uptick in applicants’ interest in remote or hybrid positions, though those make up a tiny share of the job postings.
But that could change if gas prices remain elevated into the fall, Rathod said.
Employees are working more from home, compared to earlier in the year, said Nick Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University and expert in work-from-home trends. The share of days worked from home ticked up to an average of 26.2% in March and April, compared to 24.6% in January and February, according to the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, which Bloom and other researchers conduct monthly.
That means that employees who can work from home have been spared their commute roughly one extra day every other week, Bloom said.
Companies, however, are unlikely to make major public changes to their work-from-home policies amid the gas price spike. But some managers are being more flexible when approached by workers.
“It’s just allowing employees here and there to take an extra day at home,” he said, noting that it’s partially because “employees are telling them, ‘If you make me come in every day, I’m going to start looking for another job because I really can’t afford this.’”
A shift manager at a retail pharmacy, Paul Banze agreed to be reassigned in January to a store 44 miles away from his home – double his prior commute – because he enjoyed the work and liked his boss. The 68-year-old had semi-retired the month before, so he only made the roughly hourlong trip two to three times a week.
But as gas prices started to rise, he told the store manager that if they topped $4 a gallon, he would have to rethink things. Last Monday, he sent her a photo of his local gas station, where fuel had reached $4.29 a gallon, with an unhappy face emoji.
“I knew retirement was coming, but I wanted it on my own terms,” said Banze, who lives in Signal Mountain, Tennessee, and plans to stop working in a few weeks. As much as he wanted to remain with his employer of 15 years, “the economics don’t work out.”
Shayde Fischer, who just earned an MBA in marketing from Strayer University, is eager to find a job that utilizes her new degree. But the spike in gas prices has prompted her to curtail her search to positions that are near her suburban Chicago home, are in neighboring Wisconsin, or are remote – though she’d rather not work from home since she feels it could hamper her training and development in her new career.
Fischer, 34, is frustrated because she thinks it could take longer for her to land a job because of the limitations. She’s had to pass on opportunities she sees on employment sites because they would require more driving.
“I’m feeling like I’m in a video game and stuck on one part of a map because of gas prices.”
Shayde Fischer
With soaring gas prices eating into his income from delivering for Walmart, Mark Hernandez decided it was time for a change. So he applied for a customer service position at a company a mile away from his home in El Paso, Texas. He starts this Monday.
Since the war began, Hernandez saw his weekly earnings plummet by several hundred dollars as orders and tips declined. At the same time, he was spending more than $100 a week on gas as the price he paid shot up to $3.85 a gallon on Friday, from $2.45 in late February.
Now, he’s relieved that he will get a steady paycheck “without having to drive all over.” He still plans to do some deliveries in the late afternoons and evenings to supplement his income, but at least he won’t be dependent on it to pay the bills.
“Gas is crazy expensive now, so it seems like the right direction to go,” said Hernandez, 42.
After retiring in 2017 for health reasons, a former school teacher in Florida figured he could live off his pension and savings. But he and his wife are now feeling financially squeezed by the rising cost of groceries, health insurance, property taxes and utilities – along with helping out their two adult sons.
The recent hike in gas prices was the straw that broke the camel’s back, said the retiree, who asked CNN not to use his name so as not to hurt his employment prospects. The couple has to drive up to 30 miles each way for doctor appointments, which they go to regularly. Filling up their pickup truck costs between $75 and $100 now, compared to around $50 earlier this year.
In March, he looked at his options and decided the only way to shore up their finances was for him to go back to work part-time, even though he still has a compromised immune system and is worried about getting sick. The 68-year-old found a few potential positions in the area and plans to start applying in the next week or two – though he is holding out hope that the war will end and gas prices will fall so he doesn’t have to return to the workforce.
“I thought when I retired that it would be alright, but we’ve cut back as far as we can.”
Retired school teacher
One digital marketer who lives in a Portland, Oregon, suburb really likes his job even though he has to commute 50 miles roundtrip to his Vancouver, Washington, office. For the first time, he feels his employer values his skills, he has an “awesome” manager and he received his asking pay.
But when gas prices started to climb, he thought, “This is costing me a lot of money to go here every day.” So even though he’s only been with the company since early January, he’s considering looking for a new position that’s closer to home.
“It is very frustrating to feel so helpless in this situation.”
Digital marketer
