COVID still wreaking havoc on restaurants with huge labor shortages. What’s going on?
You may be itching to get back into your favorite restaurants. But is your server? Your cook?
Not so much. Those restaurants that survived COVID-19 restrictions are now facing a second crisis — a labor shortage as workers are hesitant to come back.
“It’s the No. 1 issue — the inability to attract staff so that you can be fully operational in your restaurant,” says Bob Bonney, CEO of the Missouri Restaurant Association.
It’s a national dilemma being felt in Kansas City.
“This is the most dramatic shift that’s happened in the modern history of food service,” one industry consultant told Bloomberg News. “It’s the first time people have left the industry and decided not to come back.”
In many cases it’s simple math, according to Bill Teel, Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association executive director: The $320 a week in Missouri unemployment, combined with enhanced federal unemployment payments of $300 means a worker can collect $620 a week at home — $15.50 an hour for a 40-hour work week. Plus, fewer taxes taken out.
There’s also the fear of infection until everyone’s been vaccinated. And Teel says some parents are stuck at home when schools aren’t in session.
“But far and away, the biggest factor is what they can make and still not have to work,” he says.
One worker, speaking with me anonymously because he’s not authorized to talk to the media, said a variety of reasons have left his restaurant with half the servers it needs at peak times. One reason is that customers became cranky at slower service during the pandemic. Another reason he said, is the enhanced unemployment benefits, which he says have kept at least two of his co-workers at home.
“Six-hundred dollars a week, especially during the pandemic, is more than you would’ve made waiting tables,” the restaurant worker said.
It may not be that simple, says Scott Schneider, board member of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and lobbyist for the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association. He cites both the enhanced unemployment and a fear of COVID-19, but can’t say which might be a bigger motivator in employees not returning to work.
“I think to try to get into the mind of potential workers is complicated,” Schneider says. “It’s not as simple as one or the other. It would be difficult to try to make a conclusion out of that, from my point of view.”
What is clear, he says, is those two factors have dealt a gut punch to the restaurant industry.
Likewise, Kansas Chamber President and CEO Alan Cobb is hesitant to lay all the blame on ramped-up unemployment benefits, at least for now.
“There’s no question the unemployment is a part of it,” Cobb says. “It’s just going to take us a while to figure out how much of it.”
The problem, while felt most keenly there, isn’t confined to restaurant and retail, Cobb says: “A large manufacturer in Kansas the other day told me that now that they’re ramping back up, that 25% of their folks that they contacted to recall or to come back have declined.”
Teens, who form a key restaurant worker pool, may be staying away due to their parents’ concerns for their health, Bloomberg reports, adding, “emergency-enhanced unemployment checks have kept others on the sidelines.”
The problem has gotten bad enough that some restaurants are paying employees retention bonuses and even cash for recruiting their friends, Bonney says. And Republican members of Congress from Texas and Ohio have proposed “return to work” bonuses of up to $1,200.
Clearly the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will be a tug of war between politicians and business owners — between knowing when too much unemployment aid is being offered and pulling it too soon and hurting the truly unemployed. And who’s to say when workers must shed a legitimate fear of the virus and get back to work? That’s such a personal decision.
Several things need to happen at once.
First, political leaders need to monitor why people aren’t returning to work — and if it’s unemployment benefits, they need to decide whether benefits need to drop back to normal levels.
In addition, mask mandates need to be maintained, either by governments or businesses, until all employees feel safe.
Restaurant customers also need to be more patient, understanding that not all tables can be staffed right now. And customers need to realize that those workers who are game enough to have gotten back to work are most likely doing the work of several.
A nicer tip than usual — I call it my self-imposed COVID tax — and a kind word may be in order. Our friends in food service have always needed it, but never more than now.
