Labor shortage in US restaurant industry

AFP – Stores are reopening in Los Angeles and other parts of the United States, and “We are hiring” signs appear everywhere. But although life has a post-pandemic edge, a new challenge arises for restaurants: Workers are not willing to come back for just any salary.

“We have to deal with a labor shortage that I haven’t experienced in my entire career,” says Skyler Gamble, manager of Acme Hospitality, which runs several restaurants in Santa Barbara, two hours north of Los Angeles by car.

“Our experience in the past six to nine months, when businesses have improved, is that fewer and fewer people are responding to job offers,” he explains.

The gastronomic industry was hard hit by the coronavirus and the restrictions associated with fighting the epidemic, with a balance of millions of jobs lost.

But the return to normality is uphill. Classified ads abound on the internet soliciting waiters, cooks, and bartenders.

Craig Martin, owner of Café 50′s on the famous Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, has to replace a cook. Given the shortage of candidates, he offers a bonus of $2,000 in four payments to tempt them.

Like many others hiring, Martin blames the labor shortage on expanded unemployment benefits from the pandemic.

Many former employees in the restaurant industry “are not even thinking about looking for work,” he adds.

The reality is more complex, says Enrique Lopezlira, from the Labor Center at the University of California Berkeley.

Employers who complain about the market should clarify that they cannot find candidates “because of the salary and quality of work” they offer, he says.

Many workers in the sector do not receive pay or medical coverage, when they are sick and do not want to return because they still feel at risk, due to the spread of variants of the coronavirus, says Lopezlira.

The care of children, especially during the summer months, also affects the women who work in the sector.