COLOMBIA, SC (WIS) – Restaurants in South Carolina are open after a year ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The key now is to have people available to manage them.
South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association President Bobby Williams has estimated that the hospitality sector (including hotels) has few 5,000 workers.
He also owns the Lizard’s Thicket chain and said he could hire 75 workers on any given day.
Williams said federal aid in the form of stimulus checks and unemployment insurance is part of the problem. “[Workers] you’re going to take a month off or two months, so when that money runs out, I think people will go back to work, ”he said.
It is unclear when this will happen, and Williams said that in the meantime, the restaurant landscape will change.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know if it will ever go back to how we want the service to be, because we had too many employees in the past and now we barely have enough to get dinner open rooms,” he said.
Williams said that restaurants will need to continue paying competitive rates to recruit and retain workers, and that the association will hold job fairs.
In Columbia, Village Idiot Pizza Owner Brian Glynn said his team at three sites before the pandemic was 80 to 90 workers.
He said he is currently at 60.
“We are not getting a fraction of what we normally get, job seekers,” he said.
The lack of manpower means that he has been forced to cut down hours at his local Five Points neighborhood and accept almost all candidates who apply.
“Our interview process is almost like you are legally allowed to work in the United States? Okay, come on in, let’s train him, ”he said.
He said he is concerned that the situation will get worse when college students leave for the summer.
O National Restaurant Association reports that the industry generated more than 300,000 hires in the first two months of 2021, but is still dropping 2 million jobs due to the pandemic.
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