Restaurants Can Solve Their Staffing Crisis, but Higher Pay Alone Isn’t the Answer

Restaurant owners must create environments where employees can learn new skills and grow.

As the pandemic recedes and the country comes back to life, Americans are lining up to return to restaurants. The only problem is that workers aren’t. The restaurant industry and other hospitality and service industries, which were among the hardest hit by COVID-19 and the resultant lockdowns, are facing a critical labor shortage.

While politicians in Washington blame each other for misguided policy decisions, others see a restaurant industry that has long been broken. The trials of 2020 merely lifted the veil on the sector’s structural problems: low wages, poor benefits, prevalent sexual harassment, unpredictable hours, and unfriendly workplaces, now combined with new health risks associated with COVID-19.

This piece originally appeared at The Dallas Morning News

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Brandon Chostrowski is a civil society fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

This piece originally appeared in The Dallas Morning News