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By Ian Gustafson

Help Wanted

Local restaurants struggling to hire staff amid COVID-19 pandemic

Sep 4, 2021 | 12:00 PM

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began over a year ago it has impacted local businesses in different ways. For multiple restaurants in Prince Albert, it has been a struggle to find a keep staff.

Manager of Dr. Java’s Coffee House Tammy Daniels told paNOW they’ve been looking at hiring more staff since the province allowed for indoor dining. She explained for the first few times they decided to advertise for help, they had no response but are starting to get a few more now. However, they’re not always willing to work evenings or weekends, she added.

“We’re finding it definitely a struggle to get our staff up and running,” she said. “I’m in the process of training one person but we’ve only hired maybe three people since the dining room opened again. Right now, only one of them I’m currently training, the other ones have not worked out and have left.”

Daniels explained being short-staffed is starting to take a toll on their employees.

“We’re definitely working harder to try and keep up with the demands at the restaurant with lower staff,” Daniels said.

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The reasons why Daniels said they’re struggling to hire are because of the money given out by the government such as CERB. But also, she’s finding people don’t want to have to deal with the public and the “attitudes” that are involved in the foodservice industry.

“With the pandemic going on we’re noticing people are definitely frustrated with the COVID situation and it just kind of portrays out into just regular day-to-day life,” she said.

Also facing the same issues is Mr. Mikes Steakhouse in Prince Albert. Manager Davinder Singh said it’s been a challenge to find staff for quite some time. He said they’re getting busier every day, but the size of his staff remains the same.

“I have some staff that’s been working here six or seven days a week,” he said. “They’re all getting tired but that’s why I have to hire. One day, I had an interview set up for about 10 people and only one of them showed up and I just hired that person on the spot.”

In the hospitality industry, he said they’re always hiring and right now it’s about finding anyone with a little bit of experience so they can train them. They will have some staff leaving for school shortly and Singh said he has had to hire two employees who are moving from Toronto to Saskatchewan for immigration purposes who will be staying two to three years.

Singh explained the challenges of hiring staff have to do with multiple reasons. One of them being the COVID-19 pandemic, people are scared to work in fear of the virus. Another reason being many people who were not working were making money on CERB and EI.

“I have heard from a lot of people to they say that ‘we’re making the same amount of money just doing nothing why would we come out and work,’” he said adding he’s optimistic more people will be coming out to work soon.

Mark von Schellwitz, vice-president of Western Canada for Restaurants Canada said restaurants are indeed having a hard time finding staff. According to a member survey, von Schellwitz referenced explains 67 per cent of their members are having trouble recruiting frontline staff.

“The problem is more acute probably in more rural areas than urban areas,” von Schellwitz said. “Probably the simplest reason for this is the demographic change that’s going on where we have fewer and fewer younger people entering the workforce.”

He explained if we still had the same amount of people entering the workforce a year ago, we’d have an extra 100,000 staff to choose from. It’s also a geographic issue where a lot of young people move to the big centres.

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Ian.Gustafson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @IanGustafson12