Restaurant Industry Struggles To Hire Bilingual Staff

by Corina Hierro

Opinions expressed in this articles do not necessarily represent the point of view of Best Served. In furtherance of bringing more voices to the table we are committed to sharing varied thinking throughout the industry.

It's now been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Millions of people across the country lost their jobs, companies had huge monetary losses, and many even had to permanently close their businesses. Now with vaccination being easily accessible to most of the US population, there is a surge of job openings, especially in the restaurant industry. But there’s a huge problem— businesses are struggling to hire quickly. Why is that? There are several theories. One of the most popular theories is that people are living on their unemployment and stimulus checks without needing to work for their income.

Cesar Tamariz, the Executive Chef at Kachina Cantina in Downtown Denver, says, “When we needed to hire people for the restaurant, we thought it would be way easier. It almost seems like people don’t want to work.” According to a report from the department of Labor and Employment, the state's unemployment rate remains at a 6.6.

A group of latino entrepreneurs thought “well, why don't we use technology to help businesses find their workers and help people find jobs in the palm of their hands?”  I happen to be part of this startup called Chamba. We are creating change in the way the Latino community finds jobs. It is completely free for job seekers, and we launched right as the pandemic hit. We have grown over 32,000 users on the app and created over 900 jobs nationwide. So while it’s been going great with the app, the harsh reality is that we too, have seen a drastic reduction in the amount of people seeking and applying for the hundreds of jobs on our app. This is the problem we want to help fix and bring only quality people to businesses who need them. Of course, we can’t know for sure the root of the problem, but if Chamba app can contribute to solving this issue we are more than happy to do so for our fellow business owners.

Corina Hierro

Public Relations Specialist

Chamba LLC Denver, CO