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Nebraska restaurants are not immune to a conundrum facing eateries across the country: a shortage of workers.
Even as the state is tied for the nation’s lowest unemployment rate of 2.9%, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor's March 2021 figures, Nebraska restaurants are struggling with their workforce, said Zoe Olson, executive director of the Nebraska Restaurant Association.
“We have restaurants all over the country that are literally, as soon as they don’t have a shift of workers, they close doors." she said. "That’s happening in all types of restaurants – from fast food or fast casual. We would call it sit down dinning. It’s nationwide. It’s a nationwide problem.”
"It’s nationwide," Zoe Olson, executive director of the Nebraska Restaurant Association, said. "It’s a nationwide problem.” (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)
These restaurants, she said, are strained to get waiters, cooks and greeters in their doors. Olson has also heard this from her peers during National Restaurant Association calls, which have representatives from every U.S. state, in addition to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.
And from what she and others say, this isn’t only a restaurant problem. It’s deeper. Other industries – like manufacturing – feel the same struggle to hire and retain a robust workforce.
“I’ve never seen this, and I’ve been in this business 35 years," said Brent Lindner, who's the founder of the Ohana Hospitality Group, which operates four restaurants in Grand Island and one in Hastings. “I spent seven years out in California, a couple in Australia, and I’ve been back here since ’92, and I’ve pretty much always been in food and booze. I’ve never seen it like this – ever.”
Even as business has picked up following the worst of the pandemic, Lindner has struggled finding labor, he said. In one of his restaurants – the Wave Pizza Co. – he needed 25-30 employees to cover 70 seats before the pandemic. But now, he operates with just 14 staff members. Lindner has since hired new employees that didn't met previous qualifications, and he’s asked his 12-year-old son to help out because he didn’t have anyone else.
Olson, of the restaurant association, said there are just more jobs than able bodies.