At Heidi’s Pancake House in South Lake Tahoe, manager Luis Barrios said he’s been looking for cooks to work the line, but so far, no one h

Tahoe's hiring crisis is unraveling the region's small businesses during its busiest season

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2021-07-18 14:00:04

At Heidi’s Pancake House in South Lake Tahoe, manager Luis Barrios said he’s been looking for cooks to work the line, but so far, no one has shown up even for an interview.

He has one cook right now, who is working overtime and extra shifts. But without a fully staffed kitchen, the restaurant is suffering, and its employees are on the brink of burnout. Barrios said he needs at least one or two more people in the kitchen so he can give his employees days off.

Meanwhile, Barrios told me that his landlord is about to increase the rent on the place where he lives, from $1,100 to $1,600, even though the place has a long list of things that need to be fixed.

In Tahoe, the hiring crisis is reverberating across the region and inextricably tied to the housing crisis. Summer is a marathon of a season here, and historically, businesses have staffed up accordingly. This year though, with a shorthanded workforce, businesses are unraveling.

The evidence is showing up in the ways businesses are cutting back during the peak of the busiest time of year, a time when small business owners in Tahoe typically are trying to make as much money as possible so they can survive the slower times of year.