Jérôme Krywyj has a double hat, that of boss of his establishment La Malterie, place Saint-Louis in Metz, but also a waiter. “For lack of personnel, we put our hands in the dough”, he regrets while preparing two coffees. He him missing four full-time peopleto which he would offer permanent contracts.
“We don’t even look at CVs anymore, we just look at availability, he insists. Yesterday again, a young person presented himself but he can only work from August 4 to 22. I want to take him but he needs experience because the time to train him, he will only be operational for a week!“
The bosses even raise wages
This type of request has become more and more frequent since the Covid-19 pandemic. The job market in the hotel and restaurant industry is extremely tense, as in other sectors of the economy. According to the Union of Trades in the Hotel Industry (UMIH) Moselle, there are 3,500 people missing to operate the establishments normally, which are now dealing with this chronic lack of staff.
In his Italian cuisine restaurant Maison Baci, Jean-Pierre Panza counts only four CVs on his desk “whereas before the Covid, I was at around forty CVs per season“. He is surprised all the more thathe increased the salaries of his employees, aware of the demands that have emerged in recent months on too low levels of remuneration in the profession. But he still needs three people to serve his customers.
“So we decided to reduce the number of tables we could serve on the terrace, and we close on Sundays when we didn’t before. We too have another life!”
Adapt to the desires of employees
There are always young people to work, every day we see them passing from one terrace to another with a pile of CVs in hand. But they no longer want to work at any cost or any time. This is why the pizzeria Angeluzzo, place Saint-Jacques, has found a solution: it is hiring more staff and rotates.
“We often adapt to the desires of the young people we recruit, says Mathieu Leblanc, executive assistant. We give them constant hours, we avoid making them work every day, and if some live far away, we make sure that they don’t always finish too late.“
This is how around thirty people work in turn in this restaurant. But this possibility is only available to large establishments. Some bosses plan instead to work with training organizations to bring in people far from employment in the catering sector.