Restaurateurs announced a “crazy” staff shortage due to the quality of education and the lack of migrants

The restaurant business is facing a staffing shortage, several restaurateurs said at the dinner “Modern HoReCa”, organized by Kommersant. Entrepreneurs attribute this to “political events,” low wages, lack of quality education and migration policies. They describe the deficit as “insane”, and the salaries of cooks are called “catastrophic”.

Restaurateur (Folk, Grace Bistro, Rouge, Rocky 2, The Greeks, Blondie), chef of the year 2022 Vladimir Chistyakov said that there was a “crazy hunger” in the market. “Why? There are some political events. Secondly, a cook’s job is probably the most miserable job you can have. Couriers in our country earn much more now, as evidenced by the excellent Yandex. <...> There were still no educational institutions. The only thing – (institute – “Ъ”) Paul Bocuse is in Krasnoyarsk… providing some footage,” said Mr. Chistyakov.

The industry itself is partly to blame for the problem, says Vladimir Perelman, founder and head of the Perelman People holding. “The restaurateurs, chefs and industry themselves have subjected themselves to an incredible race and, partly, to confrontation among themselves. In part, we have raised the bar to such a height that it is difficult to squeeze the economy out of restaurants,” noted Export. He called chefs’ salaries “catastrophic.” “And this has nothing to do with the greed of specific restaurateurs or investors. The load has increased significantly,” the expert believes.

Restaurateurs were skeptical about the possibility of creating a private school for chefs in Moscow. Mr. Perelman believes that “as a private initiative this is an impossible task” or, “at least, quite difficult.” The founder of the Meat & Fish restaurants and the chairman of the coordinating council of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers, Sergei Mironov, agreed with him. “We will train our bosses internally, without school. If we are talking about a school for chefs… (Training chefs.— “Ъ”) you work for the market, you do not work for yourself. Why spend your money, your resources, in order to educate the market,” the restaurateur added.

Training chefs is “the prerogative of the state,” Mr. Mironov believes. However, he said, public colleges produce less than 1% of market demand. The restaurateur said that he met with the authorities of the Moscow region and offered to train chefs for specific restaurants, and not “for your own programs that you drew up for yourself.” In particular, he proposed organizing practice in specific restaurants. This meeting did not bring positive results.

In addition, there is a shortage of bartenders in the market. “30 years ago… I stood in a queue of several dozen applicants for the position of a bartender, being a professional bartender, knowing about 300 cocktails. Now we can’t find them,” said Mr. Mironov.

As a solution to the problem, the chairman of the coordinating council of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers sees an increase in the number of migrants. “Our migration policy is structured in such a way that we receive migrants of the lowest level. Starting from a completely wretched registration system… (For example, “Ъ”) we understand: a normal Kyrgyz chef has arrived from Central Asia. He gets off the plane and the first thing he needs to do is check in. And he doesn’t see Muscovites at the airport with posters: “Friend Kyrgyz, come live at my house,” said Sergei Mironov.

The Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers previously estimated the personnel shortage in the industry to be up to 30%. The shortage of specialists is felt in all segments.

Read more about the problem in the Kommersant FM article. “Personnel shortage has overcome public catering”.

Leonid Uvarchev