Northeast Wisconsin Businesses Hard-Pressed for Workers in the Pandemic

Patrick Neph is limiting reservations at his Green Bay steakhouse because he doesn’t have enough staff to serve a full house.Neph owns Republic Chophouse and the soon-to-open Mangiare, an Italian restaurant just down the street. Between the two eateries, he needs to hire 10 to 15 more employees. But ever since he had to shut down Republic Chophouse in March 2020 for eight weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he has struggled to find employees.Before the pandemic, the only position Neph ever had trouble filling was line cooks, but now he needs servers, hosts, bartenders and people to work in the kitchens. Some nights, he only has five servers when usually he would have more than 10. Frequently, the kitchen only has three or four line cooks when it needs six to be fully staffed…

…This story was reported by Natalie Brophy of the Appleton Post-Crescent. It is part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a reporting collaborative that includes Wisconsin Watch, WPR, the Green Bay Press-Gazette, the Appleton Post-Crescent, the Press Times, FoxValley365 and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. It is funded by Microsoft through local community foundations in northeastern Wisconsin.

Source: Northeast Wisconsin Businesses Hard-Pressed for Workers in the Pandemic