If restaurants can reopen their dining rooms from Monday, they could well find themselves struggling with a shortage of staff.
Posted at 9:38
Employees say the uncertainty in the industry due to the pandemic has prompted them to look elsewhere to make a living.
Milovan Danielou, who had to reorient his career after the permanent closure of Grumman 78, in the Saint-Henri district, is one of them.
It is now entering data. If the job is less interesting, the pay is better and he is less afraid of losing it if a wave of COVID-19 hits Quebec once again.
“Nothing compares to a job in a restaurant: the adrenaline, the energy, the team, the people you meet. Nothing compares to this, he says. But that’s not enough to bring me back. I have to pay rent. We have to survive. »
Others plan to return, but will keep their other jobs in case restaurants have to close again.
Kaitlin Doucette, of the Canadian Coalition of Restaurant Workers, says the pandemic has amplified already existing issues in the sector, such as the precarious nature of jobs.
According to her, the government’s decision to close the dining rooms again has been particularly painful for the employees. The federal government only paid them $300 a week to help them.
Martin Juneau, the owner of Pastaga, an establishment in Little Italy, in Montreal, fears that it will be understaffed when it reopens.
“We have several employees who have decided to do something else, to go in another direction, in another sector,” he says.
This article was produced with the financial support of the Facebook and The Canadian Press News Fellowships.