Not a News Flash: Restaurants need Employees!

Most of us, vaccinated or masked have ventured back into the landscape of eating out. While the owners of the restaurants that survived during the lock downs greeted us with smiles, we cannot ignore that most of the staff along with them have vanished.

Other things are peculiar as well. Dense city-scapes, urban sprawl and small-town America have noticed that once dependable establishments have had their doors closed still long after the lock downs have been lifted. New strange hours for familiar stomping grounds. Once we do get inside our favorite menu’s are hacked and cut in half, items we loved missing. Half the wait staff is missing and the ones left behind are running more tables to compensate.

Adding to the hysteria, headlines such as “Major fast food chain restaurant in big city shuts doors and says “CLOSED BECAUSE NO EMPLOYEES” on their marquee. If that’s not enough, rumors amongst family and friends about this owner not opening and this nephew still out of work once employed by a local food purveyor.

It's really happening. It’s not just your local region. Restaurants around the country are dealing with this new issue. Mom and pop establishments that have been hustling their famous dishes and national chains are all dealing with a major flux and lack of employees to support their businesses.

If you are like me, you have heard the popular speculations as to why.

“It’s obvious, their living off their stimulus check and not going back to work!”

Or the other popular statement…

“They are just plane lazy, probably sitting at home doing nothing.”

While to every point they’re our outliers, let me quickly obliterate these sentiments.

Good Ole’ Uncle Sam!

The government simply did not give out enough money to replace income of this hard-working sector. If you were an employee under 18 that lives with your parents you most likely did not qualify for a stimulus check. If you are over 18 chances are that hard-working restaurant gig was paying for your independent way of life, education, new family, single parent lifestyle …. the list goes on. Would 1200 to a few couple of thousand dollars help? Absolutely! Will it prevent you from being evicted, pay your mortgage, car note, child care, tuition all while feeding you. Absolutely not! For those hanging on to this reason by a thread… with every month that passes from the last blanketly issued stimulus check that rational increasingly becomes less likely.

Too Lazy to Work!

Food service employees are historically over worked and under paid. Institutions such as low hourly wages mixed with tips and long shifts are traditions that the service industry has been living by for decades. Would you call someone clocking into a shift with the only hourly pay guaranteed somewhere between $2.13 to $7.25 an hour lazy? Is going into work, rolling silverware at 5 in the morning or until 3am lazy? No. It’s simply not.

So, they are not living off government checks and they are not lazy but the above truth of a huge workforce missing is looming overhead. What next?

This series will dive into where this hardworking American workforce segment has gone and offer insights to restaurant owners and passionate service workers on what to expect next with in the industry that is built on the back bones of those working when everyone else is having fun.