BERKSHIRE COUNTY, Mass. - Twoflower Café co-owner Rupert Jones is behind the counter every day. In part, because the business opened just three months ago, but they’re also short-staffed.

“Normally when you open a business, I’ve had a few of these in the past, you have plenty of staff and plenty of people applying, and the challenge is getting enough customers," Jones said. "We’ve flipped that challenge here. We have a ton of customers, and the challenge is getting good staff.”

As the summer tourism season draws closer, they aren’t the only ones looking for new hires.

Walk down any Main Street in the Berkshires and you’ll see "Help Wanted" signs, like the ones at Patisserie Lenox, where they’re cutting back operations because of the lack of staff.

“We are used to getting everything out of this season," said Patisserie Lenox owner Yulia Bougouin. "We are usually open at 8 o' clock, close at 7 o'clock. And now we open at 9 o' clock and close at 4:30, sometimes 5 o' clock. We have to most probably cut the menu because the staff who we have are not capable of keeping up.”

Seasonal hiring is usually a challenge in the region, but 1Berkshire president Jonathan Butler said hiring this year has been more difficult than usual.

“They’re not only bringing back seasonal staff, they’re bringing back full-time staff that have been, in many cases, haven’t been working since last summer or last spring, Butler said. "And then we have this percentage of the workforce that either is still in fear of the pandemic, which I think we all have to be respectful of and conscious of, or they’re awaiting their vaccination.”

Jones said they’ve had to increase pay and offer flexible schedules to attract applicants, changes he hopes will benefit seasonal and hospitality workers in the long-run.

“We’ve bent over backwards so that we can accommodate people’s school schedules, home schedules, it’s just you do what you have to do," Jones said. "And I think it’s about time that the restaurant industry did that.”