Finding Restaurant Staff Today Is Nearly Impossible

In 2019, the hospitality industry found it exceedingly difficult to staff our properties. We blamed the extraordinarily low unemployment rate of 3.6 percent. Employees could pick and choose because there were far more jobs available than people to fill them.

COVID-19 hit and then, because we had to close our properties or suddenly utilize only 25 percent of the space, we had more staff than we could use. Now, as we come out of COVID-19 and begin opening our locations, we cannot find staff to fill any open positions. The U.S. unemployment rate for March was six percent so, in theory, there are many more people available to work than in 2019. But where are they?

Many owners and operators have taken their eyes off the ball by getting into the political discussions of why they cannot staff. I am not wasting time on trying to figure out why. I am, however, spending all of my time on either how I can staff my properties or how I can cut positions without compromising quality and…