At Chester’s Restaurant on Route 44 in the tiny village of Harmony, a tight labor market makes it difficult to fill waiter and waitress positions — and to find kitchen help. The bullish economy is also why Barbara Hamill – one of the owners of the family business – finds herself occasionally doing dishes. ”It’s a family affair,” said Hamill. “There is always one of us here to pitch in. When someone doesn’t show up – we do what we have to do.”
Hamill does not mind the dishes. Her family pooled its resources to buy the former George’s of Harmony five years ago. Several of the Hamill offspring had restaurant experience. It has been a natural and enjoyable venture.
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The restaurant is named after Barbara’s father, Chester, who is 96 and living in Virginia.
But while the strong economy has been good for this family business, it has meant for trying times in finding – and keeping – qualified help.
”It has been a tight market for us,” Hamill said. “There are too many people with jobs. We’re not always getting the quality we should have. We may get them, but they don’t always stay.”
Hamill said the business has had to pay more for the service jobs than it has in the past. And that trend is likely to continue – with the state’s minimum wage rising to $6.15 per hour this fall.
At The Ground Round on George Street in Pawtucket, there is a similar story to be told. The restaurant is looking for full or part-time wait staff. Days, evenings — hours are flexible. Manager John O’Rourke gets fewer applications for such job openings these days – and sees turnover frequently from those who accept jobs.
O’Rourke’s approach to the dilemma has been a relatively simple one. He just keeps hiring people – week after week after week. O’Rourke hopes that at least a percentage of the shrinking pool he has to work with will like the atmosphere — and stay awhile.
“We haven’t stopped hiring for the past year,” he said. “It’s the only thing you can do.”
Hotels and motels across the state are finding themselves in a similar predicament. On Block Island, help wanted signs adorn virtually every restaurant, bar and inn. Jobs normally scooped up long before the summer tourist season have remained unfilled in recent years. At the New Yorker Motor Lodge on Newport Avenue in East Providence, for example, the help wanted sign never comes down. Manager Al Glaude said he calls the daily newspaper each week to continue a classified ad for housekeepers.
“We used to run ads for three or four days and get 50 or 60 applications,” he said. “Now we run an ad for a week and we’re lucky to get five applications.”
Like his counterparts at area restaurants, Glaude’s approach is to keep hiring people – hoping a few will stick. He’s paying more than in years past and being more flexible with hours.
“You have to try and be creative,” he said.
University of Rhode Island Economist Leonard Lardaro is not surprised to hear that restaurants or hotels are finding it difficult to fill jobs.
“We have substantial labor shortages at the lowest end of the wage scale – and at the high end,” said Lardaro.
Lardaro has a solution to the problem – but it comes with a price.
“You can always eliminate these shortages by paying higher wages,” he said.
That presents the problem of profitability, said Lardaro. Many restaurants and other service industry businesses run on tight margins – with little room for increasing expenses without passing those increases along to the customer. That is why such businesses, he said, must carve a specific niche – to separate themselves from the competition.
With the national and regional economies going so strong, Lardaro does not see the labor shortage problem resolving itself anytime soon. It is the price, he said, for the kind of economy Rhode Island is now so reliant upon.
“Rhode Island’s niche has become tourism and retail trade,” he said.
To Lardaro, it all boils down to basic economics.
“The wage being offered out there is basically lower than the wage you would need to keep up the supply,” he said. “The solution is higher wages. It makes things difficult.”
