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When a squeaky restaurant in Manchester reported a receptionist in July last year, he was surprised to receive 963 orders in a day, not expecting around 30.
That was it then. “It’s very, very different now,” says Carol Cairnes, CEO of D&D London restaurant owner. Its 40 restaurants are getting an average of a tenth of the number of applicants they had in July last year, and some of the tasks are becoming very difficult.
“Our chefs’ ads typically attract about 50 applicants; we’re lucky now if we have five, ”he says, and only one or two of those five have qualified.
Welcome to Covid with one of the strangest developments: despite the growing labor shortage in rich countries, millions are out of work.
While economists discuss the causes and effects of the phenomenon, as well as how long it will last, the rest of us are just amazed to see how things have changed.
A spectacular sign of the shift is the creation of creams, bonuses and benefits a few months ago when workers had to deal with the bloodbath of Covid jobs.
The sunny Australian state of Queensland has just launched a “paradise work” campaign which offers $ 1,500 (£ 820) in cash plus subsidized travel to attract workers to a tourism sector that suffers from a labor shortage.
It is offered by Amazon in the US $ 1,500 session bonuses – plus another $ 100 if you prove you have the vaccine – and McDonald’s has joined a chain of large US groups raising wages for employees.
In London, a restaurant out of my office gives customers £ 100 gift vouchers if they recommend a new rental. Another restaurant in the area offers a bonus of up to £ 2,000 to employees if they can do the same.
Contractors are also struggling to hire contractors. The competition for major applicants is “hot right now,” says Neil Carberry, director general of the UK’s Procurement and Employment Confederation. “I’ve never seen a market for experienced recruitment consultants like that,” he said last week.
Why is that happening now? One factor: in some places, a strong economic recovery is driving demand from businesses that are reopening at the same time as blockades. “They’re all being hired at the same time,” says Tony Wilson, director of the research team at the UK Institute for Employment Research. “It’s very, very unusual.”
Could pandemic schemes and manuals encourage workers to avoid them? Experts disagree but it is clear that in sectors like hospitality people have left care homes, supermarkets and other places with more pleasant hours and sometimes better pay.
Some countries have added pressures that could exacerbate the shortage.
There has been an exodus of EU truck drivers since Brexit in the UK, as many industries rely on workers across the Channel. Before the UK left the EU in 2020, 72% of the employees of the D&D London restaurant group were from the EU, 6% from other countries and 22% from the UK.
Strict border rules are being blamed for labor shortages in Australia and New Zealand, where a group of dairy farmers warned this month that the stress of the shortage of workers was so enormous that it could lead to the loss of “human and animal lives.”
For small businesses, the struggle to find employees has been particularly intense.
“It’s scary,” says Nick Ward, a chef from Brighton in the UK, who has been so desperate to find staff that he has turned to paying friends to help him during the busy day. It is only far away. Speaking last week and a few moments later, he sent an urgent text from a hospitality contact, asking if Ward could work that day, he couldn’t.
It’s possible to feel a great deal of sympathy for those in Ward’s position and at the same time see unfamiliar schedules that people don’t pay and seeing them work at low pay eventually prevail. As Tony Wilson of IES says, some industries have been enjoying the buyer market for 15 years. “There has been a shift in the balance of power,” he says. It may be temporary, but as long as it lasts, employers have no choice but to adapt.
Twitter: @pilitaclark
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