A national shortage in chefs and kitchen workers continues to hit Nottingham’s hospitality industry.
Since restaurants reopened in April following the third Covid-19 lockdown there has been a major staff shortage.
CBJ Target found that seven chef vacancies within Nottingham have been posted on popular job search website Indeed on Friday alone.
The job site currently has 348 chef vacancies advertised in the city.
Josh Wheelhouse, manager at the Playwright Pub on Shakespeare Street, does not think the shortage will end soon.
He said: “Essentially a lot of sites within our company (Wells & Co) have been looking for chefs ever since reopening in April after the last lockdown.
“The main reason for the shortages is because a lot of chefs have retrained after covid-19 caused the hospitality industry to shut down.”
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were 117,000 vacant hospitality roles between May and July this year – an all-time high for the sector.
Mr. Wheelhouse added: “All the chefs I know have retrained since covid came about because it’s a stressful industry and they wanted to go into something else.”
With it looking unlikely that the shortage of already qualified chefs will end anytime soon, restauranteurs have turned to alternative methods in order to stay open.
“A lot of businesses are approaching colleges now and looking for apprentice chefs – for example we’ve reached out to Nottingham College in order to create a link,” added Mr. Wheelhouse.
“In the hospitality industry, many people that work in managerial roles have experience in all parts of the industry so I’ve worked in the kitchen recently when needed to in order to help out.”
Other restaurants have been forced to reduce their hours of service in order to stay open.
