After maneuvering through constantly changing COVID-19 restrictions this winter, Aspen restaurateur Ryan Chadwick was faced with a new challenge ahead of the upcoming summer season — finding the right employees.
Chadwick, who also owns a restaurant in New York City, said that while unemployment benefits may have deterred a few of his employees from returning to work in the Empire State, that was not the case for his dining and drinking establishments in Aspen.
“The government payment problem is a problem for us in New York City, where we’re really hurting,” Chadwick said. “In Aspen, you’re going to make more than you would off the government unemployment wage. So, people still want to work. I don’t think that’s a major issue here.”
According to the Colorado Department of Labor and Unemployment, a person receiving unemployment benefits can make approximately 55% of one’s average weekly wage over a 12-month period. However, the maximum unemployment benefit in Colorado amounts to $649 per week, which many service industry employees in the Roaring Fork Valley can easily surpass — especially in Aspen.
Still, “now hiring” signs have popped up throughout the Roaring Fork Valley ahead of the highly anticipated summer season, from upscale restaurants to fast-food chains. For Chadwick, more competing restaurants coupled with less available housing has made hiring for the upcoming summer season particularly challenging.
“The shortage, it’s a real thing,” Chadwick said. “Honestly, I think being able to supply some housing to key staff helps a lot.”
Chadwick — who owns Aspen Pie Shop, Nakazawa Aspen and Escobar — said retaining employees was crucial, as was the need to secure housing. Last year, Chadwick rented apartments in the Aspen area knowing that many of Nakazawa’s sushi chefs would be arriving from New York City and in need of a place to live.
In addition to finding housing for his sushi chefs in an incredibly busy real estate market, Chadwick also had to find highly experienced servers from a noticeably smaller labor pool.
“At Nakazawa, it’s a Michelin [starred] restaurant. So the level of service has to be on point,” Chadwick said. “I have to make sure that the staff is trained and make sure that we’re offering the level of service that Chef Nakazawa wants to maintain.”
Chadwick said employee retention was instrumental in the Aspen market and something his nightclub Escobar had been successful at since its inception more than a decade ago.
Farther down Highway 82, in Carbondale, Jared Ettelson, Village Smithy co-owner and general manager, described a similar set of hiring challenges.
“It hasn’t been a cakewalk,” Ettelson said of hiring employees for the upcoming summer season. “But, it hasn’t been awful.”
But Ettelson believes staffing shortages are nothing new in the Roaring Fork Valley and explained how he had seen less job applicants walk through the door each year since he started in 2009.
“Thirteen years ago when I took over this restaurant, I could have the pick of the litter and they were experienced,” Ettelson said in an interview on Friday. “There are a lot of restaurants in the valley now that weren’t here 13 years ago. ... To me, it’s not quite the same labor pool as it used to be.”
Still, Ettelson said the breakfast, brunch and lunch eatery’s 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. operating hours and its 47-year history in the Roaring Fork Valley often entice servers to its front-of-house job openings.
According to Ettelson, hiring cooks has become increasingly difficult because, more often than not, they enjoyed a bigger payday working in kitchens farther up the valley.
“It’s hard for us to compete because our prices aren’t Aspen prices,” Ettelson said. “Our front-of-house staff is very well taken care of but, yeah, the kitchen is the hard one. We definitely have raised our wages a lot in the last two years.”
In the summer, the Village Smithy’s staff increases to as many as 40 employees whom Ettelson finds, not from job recruitment sites but rather through referrals — sometimes from customers themselves.
“For me it’s 100% word of mouth,” Ettelson said. “It’s people knowing a friend that knows a friend that said ‘we had a job.’”
Many of the Aspen Daily News’ interview requests with employers ranging from hotels to hardware stores about staffing shortages were left unreturned. Some businesses confirmed they were having a difficult time finding employees but declined to comment further on the record.
Roaring Fork Transportation Authority CEO Dan Blankenship said RFTA hopes to recruit, hire and train 40 bus operators for the coming summer season. According to Blankenship, RFTA recently hired 13 drivers and also has another eight scheduled to train. But the transportation authority, too, is facing recruitment challenges.
“Ideally, we will be able to recruit 19 more people and get them through training in June, in time to begin filling shifts for the summer season,” Blankenship said in an email. “Applications have slowed down and many current applicants live outside of the region, which means that they will need housing when they arrive. RFTA assists with housing, but due to a very hot real estate market in the region, it is becoming more and more challenging to secure it.”
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May 16, 2021 at 04:00PM
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