MILWAUKEE — Mid-morning at Martino’s Hot Dogs on Milwaukee’s far south side is always a busy time as staff gets ingredients prepped before opening up to customers. For Owner TJ Anderson, it is the beginning of a very long day.
“This whole week it's been 12 to 14 hour days. It will be six days a week,” said Anderson.
It is not how Anderson had been hoping to spend his time. Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, he was planning to scale back the number of days he worked. While he plans to keep running the business, he was hoping to work four days a week and then have other staff members cover the rest of the shifts. However, due to a shortage of employees, that likely won’t happen anytime soon.
Anderson says hiring employees has never been easy, but it has never been as hard as it has been in recent months. He is looking to fill four jobs, some of which are managerial positions.
“My biggest thing, I believe, is there is just a lack of workers. The population in Wisconsin has been stagnant, COVID has not helped our process, the fear of COVID, fear of getting back into the workplace,” said Anderson.
Hiring difficulties are not exclusively being felt by smaller restaurants, like Martino’s, but it also in larger restaurant groups and chains. Lowlands Group owns eight restaurants in the Milwaukee and Madison areas, including Cafe Hollander and Cafe Benelux. As their restaurants get busier, as the pandemic slowly eases, they find themselves needed to hire. Among their eight locations, they have more than 100 positions to fill, including servers, bartenders, hosts, and managers.
“The market is competitive right now,” said Lowlands Group HR Director Carolyn Meuleners. “I don’t think we are having a challenge in finding people interested in working here, I think our challenge is just everybody is opening, summer is coming, everybody is dealing with those same challenges.”
Lowlands Group says they have hired a recruiter to help them find manager candidates and have also reinstated an employee referral bonus program in hopes current staff will help recommend friends or family members who would also be interested in working at their restaurants.