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As restaurants welcome dining rooms that have been occupied after having closed for more than a year, many businesses face another pandemic-related issue: staff shortages.
Two Chick-fil-A locations in Alabama have been forced to close their dining rooms because they cannot have enough staff to keep them running.
The two restaurants in McCalla and Madison, Ala., Posted posts on their respective Facebook pages explaining the situation where the number of customers ready to eat on site is narrowly exceeding the few workers to provide proper service.
The problem is part of a larger trend of fast food chains, restaurants, bars and other customer service companies struggling to fill vacancies after their staff have passed much of the pandemic. unemployed in the COVID-19 era.
McCalla, Ala., Chick-fil-A restaurant said in a Facebook post (pictured) it would close its dining room because employees are overworked and possibly exhausted
Madison’s Chick-fil-A has revealed he is currently “in the middle of a jobs crisis.”
According to the post, the fast food restaurant said it was receiving a lower volume of applications than usual. To make matters worse, many candidates do not even show up for their interviews.
The post added: “Unfortunately, due to this issue, we have to temporarily close our dining room, turn off our mobile curbside ordering option, as well as our mobile delivery option.”
Madison, Ala. Chick-fil-A (pictured) said he wanted to reopen dining rooms, but didn’t have a date for when that could happen as the restaurant is understaffed for the foreseeable future
“This was done to help reduce stress for the team members we currently have, but also to be able to continue to give you the Chick-fil-A experience you expect, only in a limited location.”
“We have some of the best team members in the world. They work hard every day, but they are tired and overwhelmed. We have grown tremendously, but we need to add to our list.
At the end of his long and regrettable post, the restaurant indicated that it hoped for a return to normal as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, McCalla’s Chick-fil-A has explained his shutdown for similar reasons.
As the fall season approaches, which is relatively busy due to students returning to school and vacations, the restaurant admitted that it could not schedule enough workers to provide “the excellent service.” that our customers deserve ”.
“We are very grateful, but our team cannot continue at the rate at which we are,” the post read. “Our team members are exhausted and there is no relief for them on our list.”
The Chick-fil-A McCalla (pictured) management team said they had no choice but to close the dining room as the busiest fall season approached of the year for fast food establishments.
In March 2019, the average weekly payment to an unemployed person was $ 348 when combining federal and state unemployment benefits. That almost tripled to $ 938 in April 2020. Now they’re still at $ 638 per week, $ 300 more than before. This means that a person who worked 40 hours a week before the pandemic now receives almost $ 16 an hour for doing nothing at home, which is more than double the federal minimum wage of $ 7.25.
In eight states, the unemployed can earn at least $ 600 per week in benefits. Massachusetts offers the most generous benefits
Chick-fil-A is not the only one affected by staffing issues, as other fast food giants have encountered a similar situation during the pandemic, with several resorting to unusual measures in order to fill positions.
In April, a McDonald’s establishment offered job applicants $ 50 just to show up for job interviews.
Blake Casper, the franchise owner of 59 other McDonald’s restaurants in the Tampa Bay, Florida area, told Business Insider US that a CEO came up with the idea of trying to convince job applicants to join the interview after telling them to do “whatever you want”. need to do ‘to hire workers.
He also said he was considering increasing starting salaries to spark the interest of more potential employees. Before reviewing the wage, the starting rate was $ 12 an hour, $ 3 more than the Florida minimum wage, but Casper said he plans to increase the wage to $ 13.
Just like many other fast food companies, McDonald’s is reverting to unorthodox ways of hiring potential on-site employees when franchise managers conduct interviews
That said, three key pandemic unemployment benefit programs established by the CARES law of March 2020 are set to expire on September 4, potentially giving fast food businesses and hiring numbers a boost. the restaurants.
The CARES law of March 2020 founded three new unemployment assistance programs at the federal level: Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, which covers people traditionally not eligible for assistance; Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC, which extends assistance to those who have exhausted their state’s benefit period; and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, or FPUC, a weekly boost to help people recover more of their lost wages.
These federal programs end on September 4.
Governors of 26 states have already attempted to opt out of these federal benefits in June and July, but many have faced legal issues, according to CNBC.
Under the CARES Act, anyone receiving unemployment benefits was entitled to a weekly supplement, which started at $ 600 per week and was later reduced to $ 300 per week.
But, by September 4, the Century Foundation estimates that three million people will remain eligible for UI and no longer have that weekly reminder.
The debate over increasing support for maintaining unemployment benefits is unclear as critics in the United States believe the weekly allowance deters people from finding work.
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