HOT AIR BALLOON FLIGHT

Pro tip: It never hurts to ask for more money. Let's get into it.  

By Allison Morrow

💰 GET PAID

America is desperate for workers, with more than 9 million job openings at the end of May. So managers are throwing out crazy ideas to try to attract applicants. Like paying them well, for one. 

Even restaurants, notorious for bottom-of-the-barrel pay, are offering signing bonuses. At Junior's in New York, counter employees who stay at the restaurant for at least 30 days can get a $250 sign-on bonus (plus, presumably, free samples the some of the best cheesecake in the Tri-State Area)  

Other ways employers are scrambling to find workers:

• Beggars can't be choosers: Managers who want to secure an offer are moving fast, making offers on the spot. 
• Childcare benefits: Apparently it took a pandemic to make companies understand workers need to care for their families. McDonalds, for example, recently announced plans to add emergency childcare to its benefits. Underwear company Thinx, which has more than doubled its headcount since September and is still expanding, credits its hiring success in part to its longstanding policy of offering an $800 monthly childcare stipend.
• Flexible hours: I know this might sound crazy but people, even those without children, have important non-work-related things in their lives that they actually prefer to their day jobs. Wild. 
• Revisiting the reject pile: Desperate employers are calling up applicants from years prior to see if they're still interested, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

CNN Business' Kathryn Vasel has more on the lengths employers are going to to win workers over. 

📉 NUMBER OF THE DAY

$29,730

Bitcoin fell below $30,000 as worries about the Delta took hold across financial markets. The cryptocurrency, which trades 24 hours a day, was holding mostly steady around $29,730, down 3.5% from the day before, according to Coindesk. Other cryptocurrencies, including ethereum and dogecoin, also fell. 

🌮 FAST FOOD SHORTAGES 

Look, I can live without a lot of things, but the pandemic-era shortages are coming for my fast food and that is intolerable.  

Taco Bell on Tuesday wouldn't even say what items it's running out of, just that some stuff, in some locations, might not be available. Which to me sounds like the kind of thing you say when you're running low on everything? 

The Bell isn't alone, either.

• Chick-fil-A recently limited the number of sauces it's giving out to customers because of limited stock. 
• Starbucks has apologized to customers for being out of some items, including oat milk.
• Dunkin' effectively discontinued the Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwich. (The company maintains it's still available in some states but none of those states are New York so it's dead to me.)
• Virtually every chain had to fight in the Chicken Sandwich wars, driving up the cost and gobbling up supply. It's so bad Wingstop is turning to thighs.

CNN Business' Jordan Valinsky has more. 

🚀 QUOTE OF THE DAY

I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, 'cause you guys paid for all this...

No, that's not an Onion parody of what Jeff Bezos said after his space flight — that's his honest-to-God quote. (Um, Jeff, that's the part you're not supposed to say out loud, my guy. You know, because of the whole Dr. Evil vibe?)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

📲 Robinhood plans to make its big debut as a public company next Thursday, a person familiar with the matter told CNN Business. 

🔺Stocks rallied Tuesday, rebounding from a miserable trading session at the start of the week when the Dow notched its worst day of the year. 

💊 Three opioid distributors — McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen —have agreed to pay $1.1 billion toward opioid abatement efforts in New York.

🚗 Mobileye, a self-driving technology company owned by Intel, has become the first company to test fully self-driving cars on New York City's streets.

💗 GIF OF THE DAY

Witness the pure joy of 82-year-old Wally Funk, who flew to space today after a half-century of waiting. "I loved it," she said. "I can hardly wait to go again."