C2 The BulleTin • Sunday, June 13, 2021
WHERE HAVE ALL THE WAITERS GONE?
BY PAUL ROBERTS & TAN VINH
The Seattle Times
W
hen Ba Bar restau-
rant in South Lake
Union was preparing
to reopen in May, owners Eric
Banh and Teresa Nguyen had
so much trouble hiring staff
they had to host and bus tables
themselves. When a cook went
home sick, the kitchen was so
short-staffed they had to shut
the whole restaurant for the
night.
It’s a similar story across
town at Bar del Corso in Bea-
con Hill. On a recent Satur-
day, owner Jerry Corso was so
short-staffed he had to mul-
titask as pizzaiolo, prep cook,
host and server, dessert-plater
and takeout order taker.
Labor is so tight Corso won’t
be able to fully open by June
30, when the last pandemic
restrictions on restaurants are
lifted. If he loses a single cook
in meantime, “it really is panic
mode,” Corso said.
“Panic mode” describes
much of the state’s restaurant
sector.
After almost 15 months of
pandemic restrictions, layoffs
and losses, many restaurants,
bars and other food service
businesses face a new crisis:
With just weeks to go before
restrictions lift, a deep labor
shortage is derailing hopes for
a quick recovery — and renew-
ing questions about the role
of pandemic unemployment
benefits.
The numbers are striking.
Demand for cooks, waiters and
other food service workers is
scorchingly high: As of May 28,
job postings in Washington’s
leisure and hospitality sector, of
which food service is the big-
gest component, were up 39%
from January 2020, before the
pandemic, compared to just
19.8% for all sectors combined,
according to data from Har-
vard University’s Opportunity
Insights website.
Yet the size of the state’s food
service workforce is still far be-
low pre-pandemic levels.
As of April, Washington was
still down by 43,000 restaurant
and bar workers, or around
17%, compared to the last
“normal” April, in 2019, ac-
cording to state Employment
Security Department (ESD)
data. That compares to a deficit
of just 3.4% for the state work-
force as a whole.
And those 43,000 missing
restaurant and bar workers
don’t include openings for food
service workers at non-restau-
rant locations, such as stadi-
ums, theme parks, hospitals,
museums and hotels. Nor do
they reflect the labor shortage
that the industry was feeling
before the pandemic — or the
hiring that typically happens
after April, as the food service
sector ramps up for the sum-
mer.
All told, Washington may
need as many as 70,000 food
and beverage workers to be
ready for post-pandemic de-
mand, according to estimates
by the Washington Hospitality
Association (WHA).
That shortage has been good
for many would-be workers, of
course. Many report a plethora
of opportunities, of job offers
Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times
Ellen M. Banner/The Seattle Times
Jerry Corso, co-owner of Bar del Corso holds a margherita pizza May 26
in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood.
Teresa Nguyen, co-owner with husband Eric Banh of Ba Bar in Seattle’s
South Lake Union neighborhood, carries food to customers on June 1.
made in the first interview,
even hiring bonuses of up to
$1,000.
For restaurant owners and
managers, however, the short-
age is nerve wracking. After
months of losses and rising
debt, many were banking on
being able to quickly hire up
in time for the summer sea-
son. Unless things turn around
quickly, the labor shortage
“will definitely drag on the re-
covery,” warns WHA president
Anthony Anton.
The threat is most acute
in dense urban areas. King
County alone still needs 34,000
restaurant and bar workers
simply to reach the levels it had
in the last pre-pandemic sum-
mer, in 2019.
“Where we used to get 20
applicants [for a job opening]
we might get five now,” says
restaurateur Ethan Stowell,
who is struggling to staff most
of his 15 Seattle-area locations.
As a result, he says, “at many
of our locations, we can’t even
consider reopening at seven
days a week.”
But rural restaurants and
bars are also pinched. In White
Salmon, a Columbia Gorge
community that would nor-
mally be ramping up for sum-
mer, many establishments are
instead operating at the equiv-
alent of winter hours due to
scarce labor.
Everybody’s Brewing, a
White Salmon brewpub, re-
cently started to shut down its
taproom every Wednesday be-
cause it’s down two line cooks
in its high-volume kitchen.
The nearby White Salmon
Baking Co. is open just five
days instead of six days and has
a limited menu.
ESD data.
But those high claims num-
bers aren’t surprising, given
how many food service workers
were laid off in the pandemic.
At the peak of last spring’s clo-
sures, the leisure and hospital-
ity sector shed nearly 40% of its
workforce, or more than twice
what any other sector lost, ESD
data shows.
And since then, food ser-
vice workers have left unem-
ployment — presumably be-
cause they’ve found jobs — at
roughly the same rate as claim-
ants in other sectors, according
to ESD data.
Put another way, the food
service industry is digging it-
self out of a deeper hole, says
Anneliese Vance-Sherman, an
ESD economist who covers the
Seattle area.
But the sector faces another,
more fundamental problem:
many former food service
workers are taking other types
of jobs.
That’s not a new problem, by
any means. For years, restau-
rants have faced high turnover
due to concerns about pay and
working conditions. But the
pandemic appears to have ac-
celerated that process.
Overly generous benefits?
What’s driving the shortage?
Some restaurant owners and
managers blame federal pan-
demic unemployment bene-
fits, which currently add $300
a week on top of regular state
benefits.
All told, the average food
service worker on unemploy-
ment in Washington is getting
$595 in weekly benefits ($640
in King County), according to
ESD data for the week ending
May 29. A well-tipped waiter
or an experienced chef could
see benefits of $800 or more.
(The current maximum weekly
benefit is $1,144.)
At the same time, the state
law requiring workers on un-
employment to search for a job
was suspended last spring by
Gov. Jay Inslee and hasn’t been
reactivated.
By comparison, the average
weekly salary for a full-time
food service worker in 2020 in
Washington was around $653,
and around $695 in the greater
Seattle area, according to ESD
data, or about $34,000 and
$36,000, respectively, a year.
Those extra federal benefits
“are encouraging people not
to come to work,” says John
Schmidt, co-owner of the Seat-
tle-based Neighborhood Grills
chain. “Why would you work?
You can take the summer off.
I don’t blame them [but] it’s
frustrating for me.”
But it’s more complicated
than that, many industry insid-
ers say.
True, there are a lot of food
service workers on regular or
extended federal pandemic
unemployment benefits —
27,516 as of May 29, accord-
ing to ESD data, which could
explain some, though not all,
of the sector’s labor shortage.
(Extended benefits kick in af-
ter the 26 weeks of regular state
benefits run out.)
What’s more, food service
workers do represent a dis-
proportionately large share of
Washingtonians on unemploy-
ment. Although food service
normally accounts for around
7.4% of the state’s jobs, it ac-
counts for the roughly 14% of
all those getting regular and
extended benefits, according to
Looking elsewhere
Data on this collective career
change is incomplete. But an-
ecdotal accounts from employ-
ers, workers, industry officials
and government analysts point
to a host of reasons why food
service is struggling to attract
new or former workers.
One is lingering concerns
about workplace safety. Some
former restaurant workers say
they’re no longer comfortable
in a job that requires close
proximity to customers whose
vaccination is unverifiable.
“I can’t afford to go back and
put my health and well-being
in that kind of jeopardy,” says
Nikki Schultz, 38, who left the
industry after 20 years for a
remote job with a Los Ange-
les-based funeral arranger.
Other former restaurant
workers say they no longer
trust restaurants and bars as
stable employers, given the
possibility of future shutdowns
if cases surge.
That was the story for Nick
Bottomley, a 15-year food ser-
vice veteran from Seattle who
was laid off twice last year. Af-
ter the first time, in March,
Bottomley began training as
a solar energy technician and
earlier this year took a job with
Seattle-based Puget Sound So-
lar. Although the new job pays
less than high-end culinary
gigs, “the long-term outlook
felt better to me,” Bottomley
says.
Competition from other
sectors is always a problem for
restaurants, especially for the
many entry-level positions that
typically see lots of turnover
and don’t require a lot of train-
ing, says ESD’s Vance-Sher-
man.
During the pandemic, a lot
of that competition came from
grocery stores, delivery firms
and warehouses, all of which
have boomed.
“You name it, we’re compet-
ing with everyone,” says Chris
Tonkin, co-president of Taco
Time Northwest, which runs
dozens of Puget Sound loca-
tions.
Another factor: Some
former wait staff fear that
post-pandemic restaurants
won’t be as lucrative. Seattle
resident and former wait staffer
Carolyn Terranova says serv-
ers may not be able to make a
living wage because in-person
dining won’t reach full capacity
again for the foreseeable future
due to COVID concerns. Plus
more restaurants are moving
to tip pooling when restaurants
reopen.
“The money will never be
there again unless I work four
part-time jobs,” said Terranova,
who plans to work instead as a
cannabis processor.
Bad timing
Restaurants, bars and other
food service companies are
fighting back with higher
wages and other incentives.
Tonkin’s front-line workers,
for example, now make up to
$18 an hour, up from $17.50
in 2019, while his shift lead-
ers make up to $23, up from
$20.87. He also offers manag-
ers annual performance bo-
nuses of up to between $2,500
and $20,000.
Many pubs and bistros now
offer signing bonuses. In May,
the bistro in Salish Lodge &
Spa and Local 360 in Belltown
each offered $500 bonuses to
new line cooks, according to
Poached Jobs, an online classi-
fieds website. McMenamins of-
fers $1,000 bonuses to chefs at
its pub in Queen Anne.
But in some ways, restau-
rants face obstacles too large to
be solved by a hiring bonus.