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‘Win a car raffle!’ Small businesses in the US get creative looking for employees

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Jose Contreras, director of human resources at Shrimp Basket, a seafood restaurant group based in Pensacola, Florida, tried for six months to find enough staff during the peak summer season. But it was useless.

Traditional methods like paid ads in workplaces and hiring bonuses didn’t bring in enough demand, so he decided to be more creative last month and decided to gift a new $ 23,000 sports vehicle to the raffle.

“If the cost of a new car is that you don’t have the staff to take care of our customers and you risk having to just go out or close and take out the restaurant, it’s not a big investment,” Contreras said. .

The promotion of the car led to an increase in job demands, but more than half of the roles it hoped to fill are still vacant.

The chamber basket, which has 20 locations, is 48% of small businesses that had open jobs in May. according to The National Federation of Independent Businesses, and Covid’s recovery from the crisis is conditioned on their compliance.

As the labor shortage hit the economy this spring, national chains Costco, McDonald’s and Chipotle offered to quickly raise salaries and provide incentives to attract employees, such as signing bonuses and contributing to college tuition fees.

Some of these efforts were successful. The labor department announced on Friday that it had been hired by employers 559,000 workers in May, almost twice as much as in April, but remain below economists ’expectations.

However, the improvement in procurement was driven by sectors such as warehousing, manufacturing, transport and health. The pace of earnings in leisure and hospitality jobs, which accounted for a large chunk of “Mom and Pop” operations, fell to 292,000 in May from 328,000 a month earlier.

Small business owners, many of whom face financial difficulties created by Covid, are often unable to match the incentives offered by large corporations as they struggle to compete for talent.

“Small businesses face the same pressures, but they don’t have the opportunity to get open tools to deal with it,” says Daniel Zhaok, chief economist at Glassdoor.

Zhao added: “They don’t have access to a large set of geographic talent, and they also generally have less financial cushion to change the compensation to attract employees.”

Federal Reserve he said The Covid crisis forced the closure of 200,000 more small businesses than might have been expected last year. Economists predict that they may fall even further when they start collecting unpaid rent bills and emergency loans.

Small businesses were expected to make a profitable summer by rapidly expanding vaccines, easing pandemic reductions and increasing stimulus controls and savings rates that accumulate money with consumers. But that’s enough to find employees.

Conservatives cite the plight of small businesses as a reason to withdraw $ 300 load unemployment benefits funded by the federal government. In some states, the overpayment means that the total amount of benefits offered is greater than the minimum hourly wage.

Funds will expire in September, but 4.1 million Americans in 25 states with Republican governors will sooner lose access.

“[Entrepreneurs] it shifted from one major challenge to another, “says NFIB researcher Holly Wade.” Starting with business restrictions and trying to increase business operations to this challenge. And you just can’t do it. “

Wage increases and incentives offered by large corporations have also become a major challenge for small businesses to retain existing employees, Wade added.

In an effort to operate with fewer staff, some independent restaurants have revised their staffing patterns so that staff can float between positions instead of specialized hosts, waiters and bars, according to restaurant hunter Tonya Breslow.

Other restaurants are simplifying menus so they can cook faster and with fewer chefs, Breslow said..

“We assumed people would re-enroll, but that didn’t happen, so they had to mix and match,” he added.

Contreras said the Shrimp Basket is thinking of putting QR codes on the table so that diners can order and pay for meals on their phones if the restaurant team can’t hire enough staff to complete the table service.

“I understand the need for benefits and better working conditions and not returning to work because of Covid’s fears, but at the same time the restaurant has to pay the bills,” he said. “They need to get things back on track. The rope is tight. “

Breslow said the number of candidates for the company’s search for employees at Mis en Place has risen in recent weeks after a “crisis” slowed in April, but job seekers are making offers that include high pay and flexible hours.

Nicole Marquess and staff

Nicole Marquis, founder of a vegetarian restaurant based in Washington DC and Philadelphia, raised her minimum wage for her employees to $ 15 on Tuesday. He said HipCityVeg has pushed for new applications and morale among existing employees.

“It really makes sense for the business,” Marquis says. “We are investing in our biggest asset, which is our town. So I think we can see the return on that investment pretty quickly. ”

Average hourly earnings were $ 30.33 last month, up $ 30.18 in April and $ 29.74 in May 2020, according to data from Friday’s labor department, which demonstrates higher wages in the economy.

Zhao says companies that can’t afford to invest in higher wages could be at a disadvantage if the labor shortage persists beyond September. It is then that economists expect the end of widespread unemployment benefits and the reopening of schools to alleviate labor market tensions.

However, companies that have learned to operate with fewer employees in this labor market tension can definitely reduce their numbers, which can lead to a longer-term search for full employment.

“This is a much better problem because we have more revenue than employees,” Markes says.

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