The labor shortage is hitting the hotel and restaurant sector hard. Faced with the latter, some restaurateurs are doubling their imagination in order to find staff.
This summer, the hotel and restaurant sector is experiencing a labor shortage and is trying somehow to attract seasonal workers. In the summer period alone in 2022, between 200,000 and 300,000 seasonal jobs would still need to be filled. It must be said that the job no longer makes you dream. Extended hours, precarious housing, low salary… So many constraints that make young people (and not so young) turn away from the sector. To remedy this, some establishments are doubling their originality.
1000 € to find a chef
Some have launched a real “job hunt” with money at stake. It is at the “bambinorocco” restaurant, in Montpellier, that this is happening. Through an Instagram contest, the establishment offers 1000 euros to the person able to find them a chef.
“I am speaking because we are having enormous difficulty in recruiting. Today, I am going to launch a small competition, the person who comes on his own or recommends me a typical Italian chef or a pizza maker, I offers 20 large 50 euro notes, which makes 1000 euros!”, underlines the restaurateur in a video posted on Instagram. In order to obtain the jackpot, however, the chef’s trial period must be validated.
The video has accumulated more than 3,500 views and seems to have paid off since the restaurateur published another message a few days later: “We have just found a pizza maker – we only need an Italian specialty chef profile”. The Montpellier restaurateur is far from being an isolated case. In Paris, too, similar methods are used.
Gourmet dinner offered
The Parisian restaurant “Chocho” has launched a contest on Instagram with the key “2 dinners for 2 people, worth €296 per table (wines included)”. All you have to do is subscribe to their account, then comment and share the post in which they announce they are looking for staff. To win the gift, you will then have to be drawn. Once again, the technique seems to be bearing fruit, the post indeed reaches 195 comments, and many shares.
“We can see that seasonal workers are increasingly rare. Friends tell us, people are struggling. There is an obvious difficulty in seasonal recruitment”, confided Hugo Madeuf, deputy chef at Chocho to franceinfo. For sure, the sector moves heaven and earth for a simple hiring. But will these atypical methods suffice?
