Celebrity chef Rick Stein has issued a plea to get unemployed hospitality staff to Cornwall, saying the area is ‘thriving’.
Across the UK the volumes of restaurant-related job losses are already at double what they were throughout the whole of 2019. The Centre for Retail Research compiled figures to show that so far in 2020 there have been over 22000 job losses as a result of Coronavirus. With large-scale chains like Carluccio’s, Byron Burger and Pizza Express all closing doors at some of their branches, front of house and kitchen staff are losing their jobs in large numbers.
In slightly more positive news, despite the national trend, Stein is looking to fill 39 jobs in his corner of the South West. His family-run restaurant group includes 13 eateries and needs to fill jobs from front of house to finance it has been reported.
Speaking to The Guardian, the chef said, “If you have found yourself out of work due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I urge you to consider coming to Cornwall. It’s thriving, and with travel bans still in place there is great hope that the staycation will extend through to early winter and bring some much-needed revenue to the locality.”
With lots of local staff apparently choosing not to return to customer-facing positions, Stein continued to say, “I would love to see new members of the team coming from more hard-hit areas of the country.”
The number of job losses versus the amount of vacancies advertised does mean that competition is already looking fierce. One demi-chef position has already had 111 applications, which the group has reported to be ten times the usual amount of candidates.
Head of HR at Stein’s group has said that despite the huge levels of interest the company are struggling with ‘no shows’ throughout every round of the recruitment process, when people fail to respond to correspondence or never show up for interviews.
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