Restaurants are finally finding their customers. With the sun and the Easter holidays in our area, the terraces are full again. For the first time since the start of the health crisis, the season restarts without restriction, and major tourist events are back, such as the Berck International Kite Meetings from April 23 to May 1. But professionals are struggling to find the arms to manage the crowds. In Hauts-de-France, only half of the 16,000 positions are filled for the moment.
Less services and manages
In her restaurant in Old Lille, Stéphanie Wallaert finishes her service exhausted. Failing to find a cook, she had to improvise : “I roll up my sleevesshe laughs. We’ve been here for 32 years, and there for 15 days for the first time, it’s less that puts me in the kitchen. This had never happened!”
The team usually revolves around 13 people. They are currently only 7, to meet the great return of customers. “We are forced to make customers wait, or else to refuse them outrightsays Stephanie Wallaert. That’s what’s terrible, when we’ve been closed all these months, we’ve had trouble reopening, and we’re just starting to breathe again.” The boss had to cancel services on Sunday evening and Tuesday evening, for lack of staff.
Shortage more visible
To find arms, more and more restaurateurs go through specialized temp agencies. Like Adaptel, in Lille, where Julien Bardarille’s phone keeps ringing: “We are overwhelmed by the demands of our current customers, and we have a lot of trouble satisfying them.“, he regrets, while acknowledging that the crisis has enabled him to win new customers.
The fault of a pool of personnel which was emptied during the period of sanitary restriction and which was not replenished. And for Julien Bardarille, it is above all the end of the restrictions that highlights the shortage: “The more we advance, the more we realize the shortage of personnel. Because there are no fewer staff than three months ago, but activity is picking up, and that’s when we realize the extent of the problem.“
On the side of the union of catering and hotel trades (UMIH) of Hauts-de-France, so we fear the worst for this summer : “On the one hand, we are very happy because we feel that the public wants to go out and frequent our restaurantssummarizes Maxime Tonnoir, general delegate of the UMIH Hauts-de-France. But on the other hand, we are very worried, because we don’t have enough hands to welcome everyone.” Half of the 9,000 waiter and cook positions in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais are not filled at the moment.