‘Industry torn to tatters by Covid’, say restaurateurs
STAFFING WORRIES IN KITCHENS
TWO Hull restaurateurs have said they are struggling to find and keep staff following their reopening after lockdown and the pandemic has left their industry “torn to tatters”.
Restaurant managers Oliver Clutterbrook and Dan Shaw said recruiting chefs had become especially difficult after coronavirus put them “through the works” and saw some leave hospitality entirely.
The managers of Princes Avenue’s Lucca Lounge and Restaurant and Crafted added they felt businesses needed to “step up” in their pitch to recruits.
It comes as a spokesperson for Unite, which counts hospitality workers among its members, laid the blame for the recruitment crisis squarely and the industry’s door, saying it’s a crisis of the industry’s “own creation” with better pay and conditions required.
According to jobs site Indeed, there are currently 112 vacancies in restaurants within a ten-mile radius of Hull, including some “urgently needed”.
Both Mr Clutterbrook and Mr Shaw said they had felt that urgency themselves when trying to recruit.
Mr Clutterbrook, Lucca’s general manager, said he felt the union had a point and that his business was prepared to pay workers “their weight in gold” to keep them.
The general manager said: “During lockdown, many of them went into a different line of work or took on other roles, they realised they could take a step back from working on weekends or in stressful environments.
“But the problem is that’s left us up the creek. At several points in the last two months everything has changed, it was changing almost daily for us. We’re going through a redesign of the restaurant, we’ve discovered that we need new ideas.
“We haven’t had as much trouble getting front of house staff, they tend to be students and the work is less skilled.
“We’re lucky to have a nice variety, we’ve got front of house staff aged from 17 to 33. And we’re able to take on new starters without experience because they don’t need training or cooking qualifications, we took on a 17-year-old recently and she’s taken to it really well.
“In an industry that’s down and out, it’s nice to see someone like that can still come in and find their feet.
“Since lockdown first eased we’ve had to build back from the ground up, every member of staff we’ve got we’ve taken on the last two to three months.
“The owner and I have spoken about recruitment, and our position is that if you’re worth your weight in gold then we’ll pay the gold.
“When we’ve struggled with chefs we were prepared to pay them whatever we had to. I believe that people should be rewarded for good work and loyalty in these times especially.
“And chefs can have their heads’ turned, we had a new one start but they left after two weeks because another place offered them an astronomical amount of money.
“People have realised they don’t have to work weekends anymore or do 40 hours in three days, so it’s for businesses like ours to step up.”
Crafted’s manager Dan Shaw has worked in hospitality for around a decade. He said he believed there were better opportunities elsewhere for staff. He said: “We were lucky during lockdown, because we had an impressive amount of deliveries go out.
“And we’ve got a strong community feeling among our staff, we looked after them through lockdowns and with furlough. Because of that, our staff have been able to have confidence and faith in us that their jobs are secure, but would you have faith in the industry right now?
“But there will be a lot of people in the industry working in pubs, for instance, who had to close entirely and the trouble is everyone has bills to pay.
“I feel like this industry has been torn to tatters by the pandemic. I’ve been in it ten years and I do feel like there’s better opportunities for staff elsewhere now. We’ve had to spend more on staff because we’re so busy.
“But I think people work really hard to give a good service, businesses need to remember that.”