Restaurant staff quit during shifts due to labor shortage: reports

• Restaurant workers “were coming out right in the middle of their shift,” CNN Business reported.
• Restaurants have struggled to attract employees amid the labor shortage.
• Hostesses, “The dishwashers, the bussers… they’ll come out,” a restaurant waiter told CNN.

An employee of a chain of restaurants in Phoenix, Arizona, told CNN Business that his colleagues “sometimes go out in the middle of their shifts” amid the labor shortage in the United States.

“[Hostesses who] sit the tables, the dishwashers, the bussers… they’ll come out, ”a waiter from Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen told the news network.

The story was the latest in a string of dispatches from the front lines of American restaurants, which are struggling to attract employees as the world slowly returns to normal.

Workers are quitting their jobs at a rapid pace, giving job seekers all the power this summer. About 75% of independent restaurants said they had difficulty attracting staff. Some have had to close temporarily due to a lack of staff.

Insider has reached out to Darden, the owner of the restaurant chain, for comment.

Darden COO Rick Cardenes told investors in May that staff productivity increased this year, in part thanks to menu redesigns and improved food preparation.

Staff handled around 20% more customers per hour at the company’s restaurants, including Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, he said.

“We believe we have enough staff right now, and as the environment continues to improve, we see no reason why we are not the employer of choice in our businesses,” said the CEO Gene Lee.

On the same conference call with investors, Lee said the improved productivity “has resulted in these record margins” for the company’s restaurants.

At the restaurant at Phoenix Cheddar’s, a staff member told CNN, “It’s almost like we’re doing double the restaurant, comparatively, with half the staff.”