Restaurants struggle to fill job openings
Outpost Neighborhood Kitchen owner Julie Casey recently fired an employee who showed up to work one morning “completely inebriated.”
She learned later that he walked down the street and within an hour found a job at another restaurant.
“He was still drunk and they hired him,” said Casey, whose restaurant is in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood. “That’s how desperate restaurants are for people in the kitchen.”
As the economy brightens, the unemployment rate drops and the number of restaurant jobs in Central Florida swells, restaurant owners are on the hunt for workers of all types.
Even when restaurants find new workers, some don’t show up or they are hard to keep because there are so many job openings, restaurateurs said. Some have offered higher wages
and lower qualifications for new hires while looking the other way at workers who are tardy or do drugs.
“There are so many new jobs in the restaurant industry that there aren’t as many workers out there to hire,” said Victor Fernandez, executive director of insights and knowledge at Dallas-based restaurant research firm TDn2K. “That’s causing all sorts of problems for restaurants even as they struggle with wages and fight for customers.”
Restaurant operators say it’s been a struggle for three years, and the last 12 months have been the most difficult.
It’s a nationwide problem, according to the National Restaurant Association, but one that’s particularly acute in Central Florida, where 12.8 percent of workers are in the food industry.
According to a September survey from the National Restaurant Association, 42 percent of restaurant operators nationwide said recruiting and training employees was their top challenge. It’s the highest reading in the 15-year history of the survey, said spokeswoman Sarah Dolan. Only 22 percent of operators said the same thing in December.
The Orlando metro area has added 21,800 restaurant industry jobs in the last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The region’s unemployment rate is the lowest in more than a decade and companies are advertising thousands of job openings in the hospitality, retail and restaurant sectors.
Earlier this month Universal Orlando announced it was looking for 3,000 seasonal and full-time employees for its parks and restaurants. At a job fair last week, Universal brought an 8-foot sign that read “Now Hiring Culinary Professionals” with jobs including waiters, cooks and restaurant managers.
When Reel Fish Coastal Kitchen opened in Winter Park in February, owner Fred Thimm said the kitchen had to open short a few employees. He said the restaurant is staffed now, but competition for labor is steep.
“At the same time we were opening, the owners of Luma and Prato were opening a new restaurant in Maitland and up on 17-92 there was Chuy’s, Kona Grill and Bulla [Gastrobar],” he said. “That’s four major, full-service restaurants opening with 75 to 125 folks per restaurant.”
Restaurant jobs in Central Florida have exploded in recent years even as the number of restaurants has shrunk slightly. That’s because small independent eateries have closed while chains have opened, often with 75 to 150 employees in each location.
Chef Ed Hollingsworth said he is so short on the staff he had to close his Chuck Wagon restaurant in Apopka earlier this month for a day when he and his wife were unable to work because of a death in the family. Hollingsworth said he’s raised his wages for certain positions to attract talented workers, as much as $15 an hour for an experienced pizza maker. But the turnover rate is still high at Chuck Wagon, and his other restaurant, Taverna Italiano at Rock Springs Ridge.
The tight labor market is sending wages up for restaurant workers in the area. The average annual pay for a food industry worker in the Orlando area increased 16 percent to $26,060 between 2014 and 2016, according to BLS wage data.
Despite the higher costs, Hollingsworth said an influx of new restaurants in Apopka forced him to lower menu prices at the Chuck Wagon, a breakfast restaurant.
“There are a bunch of new fast food places selling breakfast,” Hollingsworth said. “And when we lower prices our tipped servers are upset because checks are smaller.”
Kathleen Blake, chef and owner at downtown’s The Rusty Spoon, said the constant turnover is making it difficult to train good employees to take senior positions.
“I try to be flexible and give people time off; we’re closed holidays and I’m accommodating to people that need flexible schedules,” Blake said. “Working your way up is no longer an attraction to a lot of people.”