Augusta businesses see hiring struggle into the new year

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – We are starting the new year, but businesses in Augusta say they still haven’t fully rebounded from COVID, especially when it comes to hiring and keeping staff.

Many local restaurants in Surrey Center told News 12 that January is known for being slow in the industry.

Online, hundreds of positions are open for restaurants in the area but when there aren’t enough people in the area applying, problems arise.

“Pretty much since we’ve opened, we’ve had a problem with getting staff in the door and getting enough people to kind of keep us going. I mean, even tonight, we’re short-staffed on servers. So we’re hoping that someone can come in last minute,” said Matthew Richards, SolFood Kitchen Bar Manager.

The SolFood Kitchen opened just after COVID, two years ago, and their hiring struggle is familiar to a lot of businesses.

Now, with higher inflation, customers are cutting back on what they’re spending too.

“With not as many people coming in, and not making as much money, so it’s kind of hard to retain that staff a lot of times, so it kind of gets into that situation of we need more. We need it to be busier. And for it to be busier, we need that more stuff. Kind of stuck, kind of in between a rock and a hard place,” he said.

It could potentially even lead to their business closing.

Now, they’re leaning on the community to help.

“We’ve been doing our best making it, making things work. But we’re here, we’re doing our best to try and make sure we can keep the doors open,” said Richards.

Many restaurants say things just haven’t been the same for the industry since COVID and that they are doing what they can but need the community’s help to stay open long-term.

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