Hiring in Food: Talent vs Price, Jun 2021

“Servers, cooks, bartenders are being lazy and collecting unemployment instead of going back to work!” (i.e. “employees bad”)

“Restaurateurs abuse and underpay their staff. It’s not a labor shortage, it’s a ‘pay us a fair, livable wage’ problem. We’ll work for the right price!” (i.e. “employers bad”)

During pandemic, many food service professionals pivoted their careers. They started their own businesses, took on remote computer jobs, or moved into other industries. (i.e. “no fault, structural change in the economy”)

My guess is there’s probably a little bit of truth to all of those narratives. Since it’s not so obviously just a desired wage issue, owners are going to need to do more than “just pay more money” to solve the problem.

* There are potentially reasonable explanations for this. For example: (a) candidates skipped it because they didn’t believe it to be legitimate or (b) they self-select out because they believe it is for a role outside of their ability or (c)they are pattern matching from their experience of what is a fair price for their experience, so they ignored it

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