The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Eateries searching high and low for help
Jacqueline Silano knows how hard it is to find restaurant help, about as well as anyone in Bridgeport in the summer of 2021. On the odd day here or there when staff is stretched particularly thin at her family’s Ralph ‘N’ Rich’s Restaurant on Main Street, her 90-yearold grandmother has punched the clock to help out as needed.
“We’re definitely looking to fill a bunch of positions,” Silano said. “It’s been so hard even to get applicants — if we had a pool of people to choose from that would be great, but whatever applicants we do get, most of them don’t even show up for the interview. ... It’s really just slim pickings.”
Silano said she has noticed a slight improvement the past few weeks, a possible outcome of the state Department of Labor now requiring people receiving unemployment assistance to prove they are searching for work each week. That requirement had been waived at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic amid stay-at-home orders and as an emergency measure to help families make ends meet.
For those receiving unemployment aid, a $300 weekly “plus-up” payment expires in early September which could prod more people to hit the job boards in earnest. DOL has been posting regular warnings of the looming sunset for boosted benefits under federal aid programs.
Entering July, more than 19,000 food and accommodations industry workers in Connecticut were receiving jobless aid, about 2,200 fewer than a month earlier according to the most recent count of completed claims forms published by the Connecticut Department of Labor.
As of Tuesday morning, Connecticut restaurants, senior communities, caterers and other food purveyors listed about 3,000 total job openings on Indeed, a percentage behind counters of fast-food and quickservice chains.
Of about 600 jobs to hit Indeed in the past week that specify pay ranges, only about one in eight offered wages above $45,000 a year, the majority for head chefs, specialties like pastries and restaurant managers. And less than 40 percent of all openings offered health insurance as part of the compensation package.
Some chains continue to dangle bonuses to new hires, as the case with the Connecticut Department of Labor which has a $1,000 perk in place for those who accept jobs after an extended stretch on unemployment. Mom and pop restaurants do not always have the resources to match.
“We’re really trying to retain the good employees that we already have, [including] offering them more hours if they would like to pick them up,” Silano said. “We’re just doing whatever we need to in order to survive right now.”
Many restaurants in Connecticut were able to ride out the first year of the pandemic on grants landed through the Paycheck Protection Program, which awarded $3.2 billion to some 55,600 Connecticut businesses across all industries in the form of forgivable loans for keeping workers on payrolls. Nationally, hospitality and food service got 15 cents on every dollar in aid awarded through PPP.
Congress established the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund this year, which provided $300 million in aid to about 1,300 Connecticut establishments.
With about 65 percent of applicants left out of the money nationally — including about 2,000 in Connecticut — lawmakers want to pad RRF via a bill dubbed ENTREE (an acronym for “Entrepreneurs Need Timely Replenishment for Eating Establishments Act”) that would ladle out another $60 billion in aid to restaurateurs.
In addition to Indeed and other jobs boards, restaurateurs ping social media sites for applicants, including via a Connecticut Restaurant Jobs Facebook page that has posted openings this week from The Abbey Restaurant in New Milford, Aquila’s Nest Vineyards in Newtown, TerraSole Ristorante in Ridgefield, and a startup in Ridgefield dubbed Mexi Q.
More startups are in the works as well requiring a made-to-order cadre of experienced hands, like Char & Lemon in Oxford, Rosina’s Bar & Restaurant in Greenwich, Salsa Fresca Mexican Grill in Westport and Sally’s Apizza in Stamford.
Mothership on Main in Danbury is searching for help as well, months after owner Anna Llanos started up a Japanese-Latin fusion restaurant a few doors down called ItadakiMÁS. She said it has been difficult to find staff for both.
“I had teenagers coming out of the woodwork but need adults who can work during school hours and they have been hard to find,” Llanos told Hearst Connecticut in an email response to a query. “All my typical hiring mechanisms were failing so I had to post in more places to receive far fewer inquiries. I have been giving my staff raises to compensate them for the increased volume we have seen and wages for new hires have been higher than usual.”
Darden Restaurants is now hiring an initial manager for a LongHorn Steakhouse under construction adjacent to the Danbury Fair mall, with the company operating other chains in Connecticut including The Capital Grille, The Olive Garden and Yard House which opened this spring at The SoNo Collection mall in Norwalk.
On paper the company lists more than 1,200 Connecticut jobs today, with plans to add more.
“I think the restaurant industry is going to continue to struggle attracting workers — but there is enough great hospitality workers out there to staff all [openings] at Darden Restaurants if we provide the best employment proposition,” said CEO Gene Lee during a conference call last month. “We’re searching for equilibrium — understanding when and where the business is going to come from. I think we’re still in the early innings of that. I think we still got a lot more upside.”