It’s costing Julian Avalos, owner of Two Crepes in Union City, a little more, but there’s not much else he can do.He closed one of its locations during the pandemic and is now paying $2 more an hour to attract employees. That means teenagers can earn $14 an hour coming in with no experience, Avalos said.“What we pay definitely increased the likelihood of more people applying and wanting to stay longer,” he said, noting that he has two teen employees and envisions hiring more when the need arises.Likewise, Mary Jane Riva, CEO of the Pizza Factory, has a cautionary message for her customers this summer: Prepare to wait longer for your Hawaiian pie or calzone.With about 12 employees per store, the Pizza Factory’s 100 West Coast locations are barely half-staffed — just when many more Americans are venturing out to restaurant chains like hers.“The days of 15-minute orders,” Riva said, “may not be happening anymore.”Talk to other employers in America’s vast hospitality sector — hotels, restaurants, public pools, ice cream parlors, pick-your-own strawberry farms — and you’ll hear a similar lament. They can’t fill many of their summer jobs because the number of open positions far exceeds the number of people willing and able to fill them — even at increased wages.Some help may be coming: School’s out for summer, cutting loose millions of high school and college students for the next three months. Riva, for one, is hoping to field more job applications from studentsseeking summertime spending money.Teens are in an unusually commanding position — at least those among them who want a job. Researchers at Drexel University’s Center for Labor Markets and Policy predicted in a report last monththat an average o …
Employers finding it more difficult to find workers for summer jobs – NJ.com
