Now hiring. Worker shortage squeezes Tri-Cities restaurants, businesses

Like in much of the U.S., many Tri-City businesses continue to suffer from a worker shortage.

Particularly hard hit are the restaurant and service industries.

Fast food chains like Papa Johns have joined Subway and others in prominent advertising for immediate openings for drivers, shift leaders and team members.

There is a labor shortage across all sectors and especially entry-level jobs, said Jasmine Sanchez of WorkSource Columbia Basin.

She is the coordinator of virtual job fairs that WorkSource has organized on a monthly basis since January. The next one is 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 31 and will feature more than 25 businesses.

When Washington opened back up with the easing of COVID restrictions in June, there was speculation that workers weren’t applying because people were staying at home and collecting unemployment benefits.

That is part of it, but it’s more complex than that, Sanchez said.

“We don’t think it is just the unemployment,” she said. “The biggest factor we’ve have seen is child care — getting a job with new hours and child care not being able to accommodate the hours. Also, having high-risk family members at home and being scared (of spreading COVID).”

“Even now with the labor shortage — workers have the ability to expect benefits like more flexibility,” Sanchez added.

And while there have been some workers in the Mid-Columbia with unemployment benefits ending and not finding jobs — by and large the unemployment has recovered, said Asja Suljic, a regional labor economist with the Washington Employment Security Department.

Benton County is in fact situated better than most counties in Washington state, with only 10 counties having a lower unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate in July in Benton County was 4.5% and Franklin County was 4.9% — compared to the state level of 5.1%.

Where are the workers?

“I think a lot of people left the field,” said Kyle Simmons, director of operations of CG Public House & Catering. “I think that people left the hospitality industry as a whole. We’ve all discovered the volatility of it and went back to college or another industry.”

Simmons helps run the family-owned business that includes a restaurant in Kennewick, as well as a catering business and the Bite at the Landing restaurant at the Columbia Park golf course.

He has been filling multiple positions over the past several months but the hardest to fill has been line cooks.

“We just hired a line cook and hope he shows up,” Simmons said. “The last two we interviewed — we did the paperwork, made offers and they didn’t show up.”

Other restaurant owners in the industry have encountered the same issue.

Proof, with two Tri-Cities restaurants, advertised $500 bonuses for line cooks this summer if they stayed three months, but even that was unsuccessful, said owner Michael Miller.

Regulations are another complicating factor, Simmons told the Herald.

Drivers for the catering side must be 25 because of insurance requirements, for example, and everyone in the kitchen must be over 18 because of liability with equipment.

He’s had to increase wages for line cooks to make jobs more attractive — which he says have historically have been lower than servers.

As of last year, the median wage of cooks in Benton and Franklin counties was just over $14 an hour, according to data from the Washington State Employment Security Department.

Simmons said they paid about $14 an hour for line cooks before the pandemic. Now, the starting wage is $16 to $17 — plus wages for other kitchen staff was raised also to be fair, he said.

“The thing is, our industry will have a paradigm shift for wages for back-of-the-house (workers). And we will have to pay more to stay in business,” he said.

Struggles not over

The restaurant industry and others had been catching up with hiring back staff and filling openings to meet growing demand when the delta variant began causing a resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

During the past few months, Simmons said CG’s catering side had to turn away catering jobs because they didn’t have enough employees to run the events.

Now, he’s worried once again that he won’t be able to keep the staff he does have because of increasing event cancellations.

CG Public House & Catering caters events at the HAPO Center, which already has started to see cancellations, including an upcoming 2,000-person event.

He also had to reschedule a Brew Fest set in September at the Bite at the Landing to May 2022.

He’s now counting on the catering for Washington State University football games in Pullman. They do the prep in Tri-Cities, then transport the food to Pullman.

Simmons said as a contractor for the state university, everyone will have to be vaccinated. And he expects to have no trouble hiring employees since he mostly hires local WSU students who already are required to be vaccinated to attend classes.

The football games will be able to pull him through despite the other event cancellations, he said.

“As long as we have football games, but we’re still waiting on guidance on what that could look like,” he said.

To register for this week’s WorkSource virtual job fair, go to bit.ly/3BacZG8.

This story was originally published August 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.