Labor shortage cause is unclear, businesses feeling the effects
By Correne Martin
A worker shortage mixed with Covid spread and quarantining have become an unfortunate cocktail for Prairie du Chien restaurants. But these businesses aren’t the only ones feeling the pinch caused by a lack of workers; the retail and manufacturing sectors have seen it as well.
Places like Subway and Papa Murphy’s, Eddie’s Irish Pub, Culver’s, Dollar General, Walmart, Cabela’s, McDonald’s, River Town Ironworks and Sports World have experienced such troubles.
“We closed twice recently because we didn’t have the help,” shared Mary Sheckler, who owns Subway and Papa Murphy’s in Prairie du Chien with her husband, Brent. “Last Tuesday (Oct. 6) was a day from hell. We had one no-show and someone who walked out. I’ve worked 13 days straight.”
Currently the two businesses, which share employees, combine for a total of 5-6 workers. In more typical times, she’s had 15 on staff.
Sheckler said some of the employees are just 14 years old, which means they can only work until 7 p.m. Some have more than one job that she must schedule around. Others are high schoolers who are involved in extra-curriculars, and, in the current Covid climate, have had to quarantine on occasion after close contact with someone positive with the coronavirus.
“The employees I have are very awesome. My general manager is amazing. But they all deserve and need time off too,” Sheckler stated, noting that she had gone two weeks without receiving even one application for employment.”
So, to keep things going, Sheckler has resorted to shorter hours. Subway is usually open from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. With these issues, closing time changed to 9 p.m. Now, it’s 8 p.m. Papa Murphy’s used to have hours from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Now, it’s decreased to 11 am. to 7 p.m.
“I would encourage our customers to order online whenever possible, because when we adjust our hours, they get adjusted on the app too. So an order won’t go through if we’re not open,” she explained. “We are having to make a lot of difficult decisions.”
When asked if she had any idea what the cause of this crisis could be, Sheckler said she believes people need to have a reason to work. She expressed concern that the recent 27 percent increase in food stamps may not improve that situation.
Moreover, while the worker shortage is one major challenge for business owners, supply chain problems are also heightening, according to Sheckler.
“We’re not getting things like certain kinds of chips, and Pepsi (in Platteville, where their other Papa Murphy’s is),” she pointed out.
Like Subway and Papa Murphy’s, Culver’s has also received almost zero applications to work there. The owners would also appreciate about 10 to 15 more employees on hand.
“I’ve gotten one application in the five months our (help wanted) ad has been running,” said Jason Cathman, who owns the chain with his wife, Jen, and brother, Justin.
He said he isn’t quite sure what the reason is for this worker shortage, but he has certainly spent time guessing.
“You offer more money, and they still don’t take the job. Maybe it was the shut down; people now want to spend more time with their families. Maybe, to some degree, people don’t want to work,” he speculated. “The more I think about it, I wonder if maybe there isn’t enough people in our communities to fill these positions.”
Cathman said, despite these issues, the present leaf-looking season has been as busy as ever in Prairie du Chien. He watches pumpkins and mums sell like crazy across the street from his establishment.
“People didn’t get to experience getting out as much during Covid,” he remarked. “[The steady flow of customers] is great for business, and it gets stressful and overwhelming. I just hope people realize their food might take a little longer than usual.”
Culver’s has had to limit its hours too, and in fact closed when homecoming for both Prairie du Chien and River Ridge fell on the same weekend. With the pool of its high school employees hailing from both schools, Cathman said, “We can’t just tell the kids, ‘sorry, you can’t go to homecoming.’ They deserve a night off. We have to treat our employees well if we want to keep them.”
So, like others, they push forward, doing the best they can with fewer people.
Over at Eddie’s, Manager Gail Herfel said the restaurant did have a few confirmed positive Covid cases recently.
“Because we were short-handed, we were all together. So, most all of us had to quarantine for 10 days,” she commented. “We shut down on a Tuesday and reopened the next Monday.”
Eddie’s is down about five or six staff members from where they’d like to be at this time. She shared that a number of her employees have other jobs, so they must coordinate their hours around that.
“There’s overtime for a lot of us,” Herfel said. “Sometimes, we’re closing at 8 p.m. though. We post our hours on the door as soon as we know we’re opening late or closing early.”
She added, she’s had customers come in and tell her that “even Cabela’s is down on employees.”
In the face of the problem, Herfel remains optimistic.
“All we can do is take it day by day and try to remain positive,” she said. “We need to keep spreading the word that we’re all hiring and filling in the gaps where we can.”
At places to eat like Eddies, “customers have been pretty understanding for the most part,” she noted. She hopes people continue to be patient and remember that those who are working are doing their best.
In addition to these businesses, others have been distressed. For instance, Dollar General was closed a few days when employees had to quarantine. Walmart has a smaller number of checkers after 8 p.m. McDonald’s had reverted to drive-through only. Sports World and River Town Ironworks have both shared struggles about finding employees. Furthermore, the Courier Press’ “help wanted” pages have been a consistent 4-5 pages for months.
