Jun. 9, 2021 "Rehiring is finally on the table for more restaurants — but not all workers are coming back": Today I found this article by Jacqueline Hansen on CBC News: There are over 1000 comments on this article:
As restrictions begin to lift in some parts of the country, restaurants are dusting off their patios or reopening their dining rooms and calling back staff — but not all employees are returning.
"About 60 per cent of [our staff] are not coming back due to the fact that they either found something different to make a living or have moved out of the city," said Lora Pankova, general manager of Cibo Wine Bar in downtown Toronto.
The restaurant, located in Toronto's entertainment district, had no issues finding staff pre-pandemic who were eager to work in the busy area.
"We have always had people dropping in, resumes coming by," said Pankova.
But these are different times. As restaurants in Ontario prepare to reopen patios on June 11, competition for staff is heating up. Cibo held its first-ever job fair last week, after Ontario's stay-at-home order was lifted. The interviews were spaced out timing-wise and physically distanced at the empty restaurant.
Interviewees were told on the spot if they got the job.
"If you like someone … we need to hire them right away," said Pankova.
In May, there were still 364,000 fewer people working in the accommodation and food services sector compared to February 2020, according to Statistics Canada's labour force survey. Economists expect that many of the lost job positions will return as restrictions lift, but filling them is the new challenge.
When Toronto Italian restaurant Oretta opens its patio on Friday, there will still be some gaps in its staffing — so management will help serve customers.
"I honestly thought that we were going to be overwhelmed by applications," said Oretta bar manager Alessandro Aureli.
Aureli says people are re-evaluating their careers and lifestyles, while others are concerned about their health and safety as the pandemic continues.
"That's translated into us losing some staff," said Aureli.
"It's been a struggle to find new hirings."
Pre-pandemic worker shortage
Before COVID-19, the restaurant sector was already struggling to fill more than 60,000 vacant positions, according to industry group Restaurants Canada, and it says the pandemic has exacerbated the situation.
Staffing challenges aren't limited to Ontario, according to the group's vice-president of Western Canada, Mark von Schellwitz.
"With the stops and starts of restrictions, and difficulties with COVID, a lot of our previous employees in B.C. and Alberta have gone on and found jobs in other careers that weren't so impacted by COVID, because they just couldn't handle the uncertainty," he said.
In B.C., indoor dining was most recently shut down March 29. The closure lasted for two months.
"It was extremely difficult to relaunch the restaurants … rehiring is not as fast as reopening," said Emad Yacoub, president of Glowbal Group, which operates nine restaurants in the Vancouver area, including Coast, Black+Blue, Five Sails, and The Roof.
He currently has 500 staff — but needs 80 more immediately. When capacity expands and indoor dining rooms reopen, he'll need another 200.
Yacoub said he would usually hire many international students who can work in Canada while they study here, but that's not an option this year.
Seeking out staff across the country
"It's an extreme shortage," said Yacoub, who's using head-hunters to expand his staff search to Toronto and Calgary.
"This year is going to cost almost $150,000 [in] recruiting fees, to get people from outside of the province."
Plus, he says it's proving to be a "dog-eat-dog world", as some of his staff are being sought out by other employers right in front of him.
"I watched a restaurant owner come in … and by the end of the night, they pulled out their business card and gave it to half my staff," said Yacoub.
But there is also some optimism in the industry, that the increased competition for workers could lead to positive changes to employment conditions.
Paul Grunberg, owner and operator of several restaurants in the Vancouver area, including Caffe la Tana, Osteria, Savio Volpe and Pepino's Spaghetti House, had to lay off 60 staff in March, and about half are choosing not to return.
"What do people want now?
Do they want job security?
Do they want medical benefits?
Do they want higher wages, higher tips?
The good news is — we're listening and we're wide awake," he said.
But those benefits could be expensive, and along with the additional costs of B.C.'s new minimum wage, COVID precautions such as Plexiglas, facemasks, hand sanitizer, and extra cleaning supplies — customers should expect to pay more for their meals, said Grunberg.
"If you were paying 40 bucks for that steak pre-COVID, that same steak is going to be $45."
My opinion: When I read about the restaurant owner passing his business card to the staff, I was like: "That's dirty, like playing dirty."
My little brother P said: "That's poaching."
Sept. 27, 2021 "'Something's got to give': Restaurants slash hours, trim menus as worst worker shortage ever cuts deep": Today I found Jake Edmiston on CBC News:
Janrikk Millan was starting to worry. The head chef at Grazie Ristorante was missing about four people in his kitchen in Vaughan, Ont., just north of Toronto. The cooks he had left were complaining about working double shifts through the weekends, lunches and dinners, to keep the restaurant running, clocking as many as 36 hours in three days.
They needed a break, but Millan hadn’t been able to hire anyone in months of searching. After a hectic dinner service in early August, he grabbed a menu on his way out of the restaurant.
“Something’s got to give,” he remembered thinking that night. “This can’t go on.”
Millan got home, took the menu out of his pocket and started crossing out dishes. Anything that took too long to prepare had to go, as did anything that took too many cooks, or looked too much like another dish.
He scratched out the breaded veal, breaded chicken, spicy shrimp and seafood linguine. Then came the calamari. It was a tough call. The dish is a top seller, and a favourite among the 13-year-old restaurant’s regulars. It also required the squid to be gutted, cleaned, sliced, soaked in buttermilk, breaded in corn flour and fried twice. One cook would be devoted almost entirely to the dish every night. Cut the calamari, and he could give one of his cooks a night off.
The next day, Milan sat down with the restaurant’s owners in the wine room. He pulled out his marked-up menu, with about seven dishes gone, including the calamari.
“I just told them, ‘Look, we have to take items out from the menu, because you don’t want guys walking out on you.’ That’s basically it.”
The Grazie owners agreed, and the calamari became one of the thousands of cuts and sacrifices that restaurants across Canada are making to stay afloat during an unprecedented labour shortage in the industry.
It couldn’t be a worse time to be short on staff. Restaurants, hobbled by months of lockdowns and seating limitations, are finally able to pull in serious revenue and start the crawl out of debt as those restrictions ease up.
Instead, operations from independents to major chains are abandoning lunch services, or shutting down entirely during weekdays because they can’t find enough workers.
Initially, some argued workers weren’t coming back because rosy pandemic benefits had made lower paying service industry jobs unattractive, but the factors behind the shortage now appear to be more complex:
Many workers used the time off during the lockdowns to reconsider their careers and move to different, less precarious industries, start their own businesses or go back to school.
An aging population, slowed immigration and continued COVID-19 fears are all also suspected of contributing to the shortage.
The resulting tight labour market is driving up wages as managers try to hold on to their employees, lure them from competitors or convince them to come back to the business altogether.
“I’ve talked to some operators, they’ve never seen anything like this,” said Todd Barclay, chief executive of Restaurants Canada, which estimates that at least 10,000 restaurants in Canada have already closed.
The food service and accommodation sector also has the highest job vacancy rate in the country, with 129,000 open positions, according to Statistics Canada data for the month of June, the most recent available.
A separate Statistics Canada study on the employment rate in August showed the sector managed to boost jobs over the summer, though they’re still below pre-pandemic levels.
But if the numbers don’t keep climbing, many fear the rebound that so many struggling restaurateurs have been hoping for won’t be enough, especially as patio season winds down and high infection rates in some regions start to temper enthusiasm about indoor dining.
Recipe Unlimited Corp. — one of Canada’s biggest restaurant chains with brands including The Keg, Swiss Chalet and Harvey’s — is looking to fill 3,500 vacant positions this month.
“Managers are constantly dealing with new staff and having to train new staff, so it’s quite exhausting,” Julie Denton, chief people officer at Recipe said in an interview last month.
“You’re seeing many restaurants across the country close on Mondays and Tuesdays … They have to give their management teams a break. They cannot work seven days a week. That, for sure, has a ripple effect across the board.”
One of the more noticeable effects of the labour shortage, for diners at least, has been lineups outside restaurants that have full sections cordoned off with empty seats.
At Le Virunga in Montreal, Zoya de Frias and her mother, the chef Maria-José de Frias, are running the place on their own after their employees either moved or switched industries during the pandemic. To keep up on busy nights, the mother-daughter team limits the number of customers they let in.
Diners show up looking for a table and Zoya, who manages the front of house, has to tell them she’s fully booked.
“They look at you, they’re kind of puzzled, because you’re fully booked, but you still have space in the restaurant,” she said last month. “It feels like you’re lying to them, but you’re not.”
Some diners will offer to be flexible, as long as they can sit and wait at one of the empty tables.
“They tell you ‘Oh, it’s OK, we’ll wait … We’ll have some water in the meantime,'” she said. But after they get their water, the reflex is to ask for a cocktail. “It’s a human thing. But you can’t bring them a cocktail, because you have to finish serving the people who are already seated.”
Earlier in the summer, Zoya posted a call on Facebook for workers and put a help wanted sign in the window.
“I got eight resumés,” she said. “To be honest with you, some of them had no experience.”
Zoya has heard stories from friends in the industry about rounds and rounds of interviews and tryouts only to find a candidate who disappears after two shifts.
Le Virunga’s mother-daughter team, working two services, six days a week, barely has time to keep up with the existing service, as well as all the usual bills and paperwork, so there just isn’t time to train someone green.
A further complication, Zoya said, is that her restaurant, run by two women specializing in pan-African cuisine, has struggled to attract the same level of applicants as other restaurants.
“It’s not an elephant in the room, but it is my reality,” she said. “Even before COVID, I would get less people wanting to come in and work than my friends who are doing mainstream French cuisine.”
Zoya said the restaurant industry is a man-led one and “we’re women, and we’re women of colour. When you’re getting directives from a woman, some men have trouble dealing with it.”
The plan, since June, has been to hire someone when the business slows down and they have some time to train them.
After months of careening between open and closed, it didn’t make sense to slow down the minute diners started coming back. It’s just that they’ve kept coming, week after week, looking at the empty tables and wondering why she can’t seat them.
“We’re just trying to, I would say, probably, survive. It’s a sad word, but it’s not. It’s just trying to keep going,” she said. “This is all we can be thinking about and all we’ve been doing.”
A survey released in July by U.S. job search site Joblist found that 38 per cent of former hospitality workers are looking elsewhere in search of
a different work setting (52 per cent),
higher pay (45 per cent),
better benefits (29 per cent)
and more schedule flexibility (19 per cent).
Furthermore, half of them say that nothing would make them return to their old restaurant, bar or hotel jobs.
Denton at Recipe Unlimited, said the chain recently conducted a competitive market assessment, comparing its compensation rates to competitors, and opted to improve its benefits packages for salaried and hourly staff, including mental health benefits and personal days. The company is also offering a digital app so employees can change or swap their shifts more easily.
“I think folks are careful about increasing labour rates too much,” Denton said. “In some of the markets that are particularly hot, you’re seeing that.”
A few weeks ago, Millan — the head chef at Grazie — got a message from a friend, asking if he wanted a job. They were offering an hourly wage well above most pre-pandemic standards.
“They’re short. Now they want to hire you. They want to throw money in your face,” he said. “But how? Like, how can you afford that?”
Millan didn’t take the job.
“I’ve been at Grazie restaurant for 11 years,” he said.
During the lockdowns, when the restaurant was shut down, Millan and his wife started a side gig, a little pop-up burger stand and the Grazie owners let him use their kitchen to run it.
“They’ve been my family,” he said, explaining why he didn’t want to leave them, not for another restaurant, not for anything except his own restaurant, some day.
The 31-year-old chef is still hiring. He’s posted on online job boards. He’s calling old staff and digging up old resumés lying around from pre-pandemic times when he had no use for them. But he said all of them have new jobs, some in new industries, or have started their own thing altogether.
“I think people are just tired,” Millan said. “There’s no one coming in. No one’s on Indeed. No one’s applying.”
This week's theme is about jobs and restaurants during the pandemic:
"I'm a burnt-out barista, and I don't know if I'll return to my minimum wage job"/ "Small businesses face 'bloodbath' in Ontario clampdown: Restaurateur"
"Front-line workers shoulder burden of vaccine mandates"/ "Restaurants brace for dim New Year's Eve as COVID-19 reins in celebrations again"
My week:
Jan. 11, 2022 "Naya Rivera's Sister Nickayla on How She Got Out of a 'Dark Place' After the Glee Star's Death": Today I found this article by Ally Mauch on Yahoo news:
Naya Rivera's sister Nickayla is opening up about how she coped with the Glee star's death in July 2020.
"I felt like I could do anything after that," Nickayla said. "I picked up journaling and started writing about my feelings. I started therapy. I said no to doing a lot of things that I didn't want to do, but normally would for other people. I started putting myself first. I became mindful and observed how I felt each day."
The model noted that Naya's death prompted her to appreciate each day and each moment.
"I started asking myself the tough questions of, what's stopping me from being myself?
What past hurt am I still holding onto?
And why am I not living like every day is a gift? Because it is," she said.
My opinion: Those are good questions.
Jan. 19, 2022 "Cardi B offers to pay funeral costs for Bronx fire victims": Today I found this article by Alex Woodward on Yahoo news:
Rapper Cardi B has offered to pay the funeral costs for all 17 people who died from smoke inhalation in a high-rise apartment building fire in The Bronx.
The Bronx native has pledged to support funeral expenses, including repatriation for several victims to be buried in the Gambia, through a relief fund established by the New York City mayor’s office.
“I’m extremely proud to be from the Bronx and I have lots of family and friends who live and work there still. So, when I heard about the fire and all of the victims, I knew I needed to do something to help,” Cardi B said in a statement on 19 January.
“I cannot begin to imagine the pain and anguish that the families of the victims are experiencing, but I hope that not having to worry about the costs associated with burying their loved ones will help as they move forward and heal,” she said. “I send my prayers and condolences to everyone affected by this horrific tragedy.”
The Bronx Fire Relief Fund has raised more than $2.5m in the wake of the fire, according to Mayor Eric Adams.
“We are grateful for Cardi B, a real superstar on and off the mic, for granting some critical financial relief to families of the victims,” the mayor said in a statement. “The city will be forever thankful to her and also to the grassroots donors and corporate partners who have been able to offer immediate support for our neighbors in need, to reestablish themselves during this difficult time.”
Funds from the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City will support impacted households with $2,20 in immediate financial relief.
Cardi B offers to pay funeral costs for Bronx fire victims (yahoo.com)
My opinion: That is so nice of Cardi B to do that.
Jan. 22, 2022 "A 73-year-old New York grandmother outsmarted scammers who pretended to be her grandson and said he needed $8,000 to be bailed out of jail": Today I found this article by Katie Balevic on Yahoo news:
A Long Island grandmother outsmarted scammers who tried to steal thousands from her.
The woman from Seaford, who asked to be identified as Jean, told CBS2 that she received a call from someone claiming to be her grandson. The man said he was arrested for drunk driving and needed to be bailed out of jail.
"I knew he was a real scammer. I just knew he wasn't going to scam me," Jean, 73, told CBS2. "He starts calling me 'grandma,' and then I'm like, I don't have a grandson that drives, so I knew it was a scam."
The scam took several phone calls to play out and involved multiple unidentified males, police said in a press release. One person claiming to be a lawyer for Jean's grandson told her that he needed $8,000 to get out of jail. A third person called claiming to be a bail bondsman coming to collect the money.
"I told him I had the money in the house, and I figured, he's not going to fall for that," Jean said, adding that she called the police. "Well, he fell for that hook, line, and sinker."
A man impersonating a bail bondsman arrived at Jean's home to collect the money, and she handed him an envelope filled with paper towels. As he turned to leave, police officers tackled him, according to CBS2.
Officers of the Nassau County Police Department arrested Joshua Estrella Gomez, 28, and charged him with attempted grand larceny in the third degree. He was released on an appearance ticket and is due to appear in court on February 3.
"I feel like gotcha, and I feel like, like you say, so many people fall for this and you only hear about it on the other end after they've lost $8,000," Jean said.
Nassau County PD spokesperson Richard Lebrun told Insider that people should block unwanted calls and texts to avoid being scammed. If someone calls claiming to have been arrested, call that person or a family member to confirm.
"Resist the pressure to act immediately," Lebrun said in a statement. "Legitimate business will give you time to make payments."
"Never pay with gift cards or wire money to an unknown person or business," he added.
Meetups: I went to 4 Meetups online events last week. I have met 16 people in total.
Table Topic Dailies: I went to 3 of these events last week. I asked the question of:
What kind of TV shows and movies do you watch?
I like watching TV and movies. The two women listed sitcoms.
I was asked:
What would you want an unlimited supply of? And it can't be money.
Tracy: I would say food. I can get groceries. I don't buy things to own. I always go to Shoppers Drug Mart to buy chips, cookies, and snacks. If you want to buy me a gift, buy me those snacks or a fast food meal.
Jan. 24, 2022 "Canadians flocking to food rescue apps to reduce grocery bills and waste": Today I found this article by Tara Deschamps on BNN Bloomberg news. I like this article so much I posted this on Facebook:
When Gillian Pulfer picked up roasted sweet potato soup, flank steak and chicken salad from a Toronto Pusateri's Fine Foods for $10 last weekend, the deal was too good not to brag about.
"It's a more high-end, luxury grocery store...so most people don't necessarily have the budget to go shop there, but you're saving money and you're getting good food," said Pulfer.
After chowing down, she let her Instagram followers in on her secret: She found the haul on Too Good to Go. The app is one of many uniting deal-seekers with restaurants and grocers eager to keep aging food that's still fit for consumption out of the trash in exchange for a small fee.
Users of apps like Too Good To Go, Flashfood, Feedback and Olio say they have paid anywhere from $3 to $10 for prepared lunches or dinners, a week's worth of vegetables and fruit, several loaves of bread, pastry boxes and even, entire pizzas or cakes.
The app offers produce, meat, fish, bread, dairy and pantry staples nearing their best before date and often marked down by at least 50 per cent. Some items last for weeks, if frozen or cooked. Others have a day or two left.
Canadians flocking to food rescue apps to reduce grocery bills and waste - BNN Bloomberg
Jan. 25, 2022 "74-year-old Black woman exonerated after serving 27 years in prison": Today I found this article by Chanelle Chandler:
After serving 27 years in prison for crimes she did not commit, 74-year-old Joyce Watkins of Nashville was exonerated this month, her convictions in the murder and sexual assault of her 4-year-old grandniece overturned.
Watkins, along with her then boyfriend, Charlie Dunn, had been convicted in 1988 of first-degree murder and aggravated rape in the death of her niece Brandi, but were both granted parole in 2015. Dunn, who died in prison before his release, was posthumously exonerated that same year. Watkins, meanwhile, left jail and sought to clear her good name, eventually becoming the first Black woman in Tennessee history to have her conviction overturned.
“It was a long struggle to get here,” Jason Gichner, the senior legal counsel for the Tennessee Innocence Project, which represented Watkins, told Yahoo News.
“We’re grateful for the judge and we're grateful for the collaboration with the district attorney’s office,” Gichner said, “But [Watkins] lost 27 years of her life. Charlie lost 27 years of his life. His kids and grandkids grew up with people thinking that their father and grandfather was a murderer. There's nothing we can do to fix that. All we can do is acknowledge what happened to them and publicly celebrate their innocence now.”
“Then, the medical examiner had this opinion that, ‘Well, these injuries had to have happened based on things that I'm seeing during the autopsy,’ but she was just getting it wrong. I mean, she was looking for a certain type of cell to appear in the brain slides that would never be there,” Gichner said, referring to a lack of histiocytic response in the brain tissue. “So she said, because I saw a lack of these particular cells, that means it happened within the last 12 hours. And there's just no truth to support that.”
The initial medical report in the case was rendered by Dr. Gretel Harlan, assistant medical examiner and the wife of Dr. Charles Harlan, the state’s chief medical examiner at the time. Court documents state that Harlan initially said that the child’s fatal injuries occurred 24 hours to 48 hours before her death, but according to court records, moments before heading into the courtroom for the trial, she shortened the window of injury to 12 hours, concluding that Watkins and Dunn victimized the toddler.
74-year-old Black woman exonerated after serving 27 years in prison (yahoo.com)
My opinion: This is sad and bittersweet news. At least Joyce Watkins is free now.
"Woman finds out she won $3 million lottery prize after checking her email spam folder": Today I found this article by Tanya Wildt on Yahoo news:
OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich.— A Michigan woman's search for a missing email turned into a $3 million surprise.
Laura Spears, 55, of Oakland County, was recently on the hunt for an email when she noticed one in her spam folder from the Michigan Lottery notifying her she had won a $3 million Mega Millions prize, according to the Michigan Lottery.
Spears' ticket matched the five white balls drawn Dec. 31 — 2-5-30-46-61 — and had the Megaplier, increasing her $1 million prize to $3 million.
Spears had purchased the ticket a few days earlier after seeing a Facebook ad that the jackpot was at a high amount.
"I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my Lottery account to confirm the message in the email," she told the Michigan Lottery. "It’s all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million!"
She recently claimed her prize and plans to share the money with family and retire earlier than planned.
She also made sure to change her email settings.
"I definitely added the Michigan Lottery to my safe senders list just in case I ever get lucky enough to receive another email about a huge prize," Spears said.
Woman finds out she won $3 million lottery prize after checking her email spam folder (yahoo.com)
Jan. 27, 2022 "Guy looked at the homeless man and realized that it was his MATH teacher! That’s what happened NEXT": I found this on Youtube. Steven Nava from California walks by this car at a parking lot and sees an old man. After a few times, he always sees that car there and approaches it. It's his old teacher Jose Villaruel. He's 77 yrs old and had to quit being a teacher due to the pandemic.
He had to pay for his wife's expensive medical bills in Mexico, and insurance doesn't cover everything. Steven and his wife gave him cash, food, and a hotel room for a few days, and set a Go Fund Me campaign and his students donated money. The mayor Jose is able to buy a new home.
