Restaurants have trouble hiring as workers move on
The Grainery in Plain City needs more staff as customers return to inperson dining in greater numbers.
But job openings at the bar and restaurant had few takers, even after manager Andrew Dawson offered sign-on bonuses.
“I personally have scheduled 23 interviews in the past two and a half weeks and have had three people show up, only one of which accepted the position,” Dawson said.
The lack of response was somewhat shocking.
“Being in the industry for 15 years, I’m used to having people lining up at the door whenever we needed help or made (job) postings,” Dawson said.
The Grainery isn’t alone. Even as the industry was crushed by the pandemic, restaurants across the Buckeye State report difficulties filling open jobs, and many in the industry worry that the most experienced workers have left the business altogether.
“Every operator the Ohio Restaurant Association talks with is struggling to hire and fill open positions in every area, from entry level, servers and cooks to management,” John Barker, president and CEO of the Ohio Restaurant Association, wrote in an April 6 op-ed in Thisweeknews.
Finding a dedicated and experienced workforce long has been a challenge for the service industry.
“It's not a new issue,” said Homa Moheimani, spokesperson for the restaurant association. “But it was exacerbated because of the pandemic.”
Employment in Ohio's hospitality industry fell by roughly half at the height of the pandemic last spring and has yet to fully recover, leaving tens of thousands of bartenders, servers, cooks, hostesses and managers out of a job. That makes hiring difficulties especially vexing to restaurant owners and operators.
Advocates for restaurant workers say some still fear infection from coronavirus, which is rising throughout the country even as Americans receive vaccinations. But many former servers, bartenders and cooks simply moved on to other industries, they said, potentially leaving Ohio's bars and restaurants without an experienced workforce for the foreseeable future.
Moving on
Trisha Kotarsky was laid off from her restaurant job last spring as Ohio's response to the pandemic shut down taverns and eateries throughout the state.
The 29-year-old Cleveland woman drove for Lyft to make ends meet, and is now considering applying to a northeast Ohio college to jump start a new career.
“The pandemic pushed me a little bit to realize that I wanted to leave the industry,” she said.
Kotarsky's first job was at Chuck-echeese as a teenager, and she's been working at restaurants ever since. Now that she's approaching 30, she feels she has little to show for the more than 10 years she spent in the business.
“I don't have paid time off, I have no sick days, no insurance, the hours are wonky,” Kotarsky said. “I don't want that anymore.”
While she might return to a restaurant job over the summer, she calls that a stop gap measure while she prepares for college.
Kotarsky's experience is a common one, said Sekou Siby, president and CEO of ROC United, which represents restaurant workers across the country. But most workers, he said, have a more straightforward reason for leaving service work: money.
With major employers like Amazon and Walmart offering a $15 minimum wage plus benefits like health insurance, finding better jobs is less difficult for the low-skilled workers the service industry depends on, he said.
“When somebody is living on $8.25 an hour, it's hard to go back to work with the same kind of conditions, especially when some of the major players have really upped their game in terms of salary,” he said.
Siby also stressed that COVID-19 infection rates are rising in some parts of the country, a scary prospect for workers with relatives at high risk for infection. The virus has killed nearly 19,000 Ohioans.
Why it’s hard on restaurants
The lack of qualified applicants presents a problem as customers are venturing out again. Pandemic restrictions and fears of infection kept many of them home for the past year.
Rick Ziliak owns Z Cucina, which has restaurants in Dublin and Grandview Heights. His eateries are more upscale than most, and Ziliak said he looks for experienced staff who already know their wines, understand concepts like bottle service, and can answer customer questions right off the bat.
“The learning curve is a lot quicker when you get people who have the experience,” he said.
With a dearth of qualified servers applying for open positions, training will take longer and the customer experience could suffer, Ziliak said.
And when job applicants are hard to come by, it often leaves those still on the job scrambling to finish extra work and still provide adequate service.
“Some nights we get so busy the (servers) are overwhelmed, and we're asking guests to please be patient,” said Matt Rootes, who co-owns Matt and Tony's Wood Fired Kitchen in German Village and Pat and Gracie's, which has restaurants Downtown and in Clintonville.
In an odd way, some understaffed restaurants can benefit from Ohio's coronavirus restrictions, which have been relaxed in recent months but still require eateries to space tables at least 6 feet apart.
“That helps us because it at least reduces the number of customers,” Rootes said.
Unemployment benefits
Unemployed workers will receive an extra $300 on their weekly unemployment checks for the next several months thanks to a coronavirus relief bill signed into law earlier this spring. Some restaurant owners blame hiring problems on the benefits boost, saying unemployment now offers more than they can pay.
Moheimani cited beefed up weekly checks as one of several reasons workers are reluctant to return to bars and restaurants.
But, she said, “we don't' necessarily know how much of each category is affecting the willingness of people coming to work for the restaurant industry.”
Workers say their decisions are more complex than that.
Ashley Williamson, who lives in Cincinnati, was laid off from her restaurant job at the height of the pandemic. She's looking for a position that pays at least as much as her previous job.
“It's been harder for me because I was in management, and there aren't as many of those positions that are actually hiring,” she said. “And everyone that is is paying significantly less than my previous position.”
Rootes thinks most unemployed service workers want to come back, regardless of the extra money. Servers and bartenders thrive on the fast-paced and sometimes chaotic nature of their work, he said.
“Restaurant people aren't like typical workers,” he said. pcooley@dispatch.com @Patrickacooley