The weakening of the ruble exacerbated the shortage of chefs and bartenders in Russia

The weakening of the ruble exacerbated the personnel problem in Russian public catering. Labor migrants left our country, so now this area lacks qualified employees. Restaurants complain the lack of cooks and other staff. The shortage of employees is 20-30%. If the problem is not solved, then as a result, visitors to cafes and restaurants will wait longer than usual for meals on weekends.

About it in my Telegram channel informed founder of the Chinese News restaurants Stanislav Lisichenko. “There is a terrible shortage of personnel in the Moscow restaurant market,” he stressed. “There are simply no chefs.” According to Sergei Mironov, Chairman of the Coordinating Council of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers (FriO), catering also lacks bartenders and cleaning staff. In the capital, the shortage of personnel in this segment reaches 20-30%, which has never happened before. The problem has been especially acute since June 2023. One of the main reasons for this, according to Lisichenko, was the appreciation of the dollar. The depreciation of the ruble reduced the income of labor migrants, who send part of their salary home, by almost 40%, which negatively affected the labor market in the restaurant business.

The second negative factor that scared people away was Russia’s special operation in Ukraine. Some of the employees “feared” its consequences, someone was mobilized, and someone, including the “new citizens of Russia”, left as volunteers, the entrepreneur explained. He also believes that “the nail in the coffin of the restaurant job market” was the new autumn openings of restaurants that “pay absolutely any money just to recruit people and open.” So, the salary of a line cook in catering establishments that have not yet opened reaches 4 thousand rubles. for a shift. All this can affect the quality of customer service. “Chefs will, like siskins, jump from a hot shop to a cold shop, and cut their workpieces in between,” explained Stanislav Lisichenko. Waiting for ready meals in restaurants on Saturday evening will reach 45 minutes, the expert warned.

According to Oleksiy Vasilchuk, co-owner of the Restart Vasilchuk Brothers holding, the shortage of employees is due to low wages in the catering industry. As a result, people prefer to become couriers or be self-employed. The tightening of migration policy also played a role.

The share of foreign employees working in the restaurant business in Moscow is about 60%. However, 70–75% of migrants work in the fast food industry. According to Anton Krasulin, head of the Vocker project, Russians consider such work to be “ungrateful and difficult,” even with high salaries. And citizens of the CIS, who send their salaries home, lost interest in the catering sector against the background of the appreciation of the dollar. “Now many of our employees from the CIS choose to work not in Russia, but in other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, South Korea,” Krasulin said. He added that in these countries they have a comfortable salary and there are no sanctions that affect them when they work in our country.

Experts note that an increase in the salaries of employees will not save the situation, since there is now zero unemployment in the capital market, and restaurants will simply poach employees from each other. According to Mironov, the attraction of personnel from Russia-friendly developing countries could solve the problem. “For example, many good ready-made chefs come from Kyrgyzstan,” he explained.