This contradiction was particularly prominent in the National Day Mid-Autumn Festival just past.
Why is this?
Different from "May Day", this National Day Golden Week is a real recovery under the normalization of epidemic prevention. Inter-provincial tourism is very popular. The National Day holiday * * * received 637 million domestic tourists, which naturally boosted the upsurge of catering consumption.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Commerce on the 8th, during the eight-day long holiday, the sales of national key retail and catering monitoring enterprises were about/kloc-0.6 trillion yuan, and the average daily sales increased by 4.9% compared with last year's "Eleventh" Golden Week.
In addition, reunion banquets, wedding banquets, birthday banquets and family banquets suspended in the first half of the year are also held during this long holiday.
During the two-day long holiday, tourism and banquets became the main driving force of the catering industry. Chefs in popular tourist cities are finally "busy" again, but some chefs feel that there are fewer diners.
"Too busy! 2-3 times as many people! "
From the closure of the city to the opening of the National Day Golden Week, A Feng of Wuhan finally realized the feeling of sweating and being busy in the kitchen. Joy and joy have always permeated his face.
Li Hongfei, a cooking worker in Miyun, Beijing, also made the same sound. "It's like spending eight spring and autumn."
Li Hongfei said that although Miyun is far away from the urban area, it attracted many tourists from Beijing and surrounding areas during the National Day Golden Week because of local attractions such as Miyun Reservoir and Gubei Water Town.
In addition to the food and beverage consumption brought by tourism, various banquets held together are also the driving force for chefs to be busy.
Also in Hubei, Xiao Jiang, who made woks in a four-star hotel in Jingzhou, made nearly 800 tables in this festival. No.65438+10/October 1 has been on more than 200 tables.
Xiaojiang has to work overtime for four hours every day, except for eating and working, but in the end he only gets overtime pay and bonus of 1000 yuan. "Tired and happy, it is not easy to make money this year. I have to earn it back in the first half of the year. "
Even Chen Junliang, who lives in Suining, Sichuan, said that the daily turnover of this year's long holiday restaurant has actually recovered to the same level as a few days before the Spring Festival this year, that is, the turnover before the outbreak. "We have fewer tourists here, but there are many banquets and the kitchen is understaffed. They all work overtime. "
In contrast, chefs in some non-popular tourist cities can obviously feel the decrease of passenger flow and can only envy other peers.
Zhai, who lives in Weifang, Shandong, thinks this is because all the locals have gone out to play. He lamented: "Those who have spare money have gone out to travel, and most of the rest stay at home and cook for themselves. There are no guests at all during the two-day long holiday. "
Master Dai from Huizhou, Guangdong Province also has a deep understanding of this.
According to Master Dai, their store mainly makes bulk orders, and the business recovered well before the Double Festival. However, during the long vacation, local people went out to travel, but there were fewer guests. "My friend's bar is full every day. He said it was fully booked in October this year. Other shops that don't do banquets have no guests, so I envy them. "
Some chefs also believe that there will be a good opportunity for the banquet to break out at the end of this year, because catering enterprises have begun to recruit people again.
Huang Lijun, who is also in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, said that during the National Day Golden Week this year, many friends said that the number of hotel banquets was much less. Even the number of banquets in his own hotel is one-third less than that in the same period last year, and there are not many ordinary individual guests.
However, unlike others, Huang Lijun is not worried about the cold weather on National Day, but is full of confidence at the end of this year.
"Guangdong rarely puts wine on the first and fifteenth day of the first month, so many people go out to travel, but June 5438+February is a good day, especially suitable for weddings and birthday banquets. Our hotel has reserved more than 1000 seats, and I believe the number of banquets will increase. "
Huang Lijun said bluntly that his hotel has begun to recruit more chefs to prepare for the "hot business" at the end of the year.
Chen Junliang also told the red kitchen. He can see a lot of recruitment information around the National Day. "Some stores have too few people taking big orders in the kitchen because of layoffs in the early stage, and they are eager to find someone; Some shops are preparing for the New Year in China. After all, the national catering industry has almost stopped this Spring Festival, and it will definitely go back to' make up' next year. "
It is not difficult to see that the long holiday has played a very big role in promoting the recovery of catering. Driven by various tours and banquets, many chefs are very busy, and many catering enterprises have been recruiting chefs since the National Day.
But have all the chefs who are still unemployed found jobs?
In fact, as early as before the National Day, many people announced in the group of chefs the need to recruit temporary workers, part-time workers and contract workers:
During the National Day, there are:
There are also people who recruit after the National Day, and even say that "the craftsmanship is generally ok":
These phenomena are enough to show that many restaurants are really caught in the dilemma of "labor shortage".
The reason behind it is very simple. Because of the epidemic, too many chefs were laid off and forced to change careers.
In February this year, the catering industry began to resume work. In order to reduce costs, many catering enterprises have greatly laid off employees, leaving only some "all-round" chefs, and the laid-off chefs have to choose to switch to other industries to make a living.
Because most of the laid-off workers are middle-level and small-scale workers, such as loading lotus seeds, chopping boards, delivering vegetables, frying pans, etc., most of them are young chefs, which makes their job-hopping cost very low and can quickly adapt to new industries and jobs.
As long as they succeed in changing careers, they are doomed not to return to the chef industry in a short time, or even to the end.
Li Hongfei said: "Many chefs have changed careers this year because of the epidemic, and there are many around me."
Li, the head chef of a hotel in Chongqing, also believes that many people have changed careers this year because of the epidemic, and most of them are unwilling to be kitchens after changing careers. "The concept of young people is not the same as before, and they must rest on holidays."
When the long vacation becomes a "catalyst" to promote catering consumption, catering will naturally recover rapidly, but those catering enterprises with insufficient kitchen staff will be caught off guard and can only recruit people, even if they find someone to replace them.
However, most of the chefs who were laid off before have changed careers, and it is not surprising that restaurant companies can't recruit people.
But the Red Kitchen also found another phenomenon: even after the National Day, there are chefs looking for jobs in major chefs:
On the one hand, there is a serious shortage of people in the face of rapid recovery, on the other hand, some chefs can't find jobs until 5438+00 in mid-June.
Behind the seemingly contradictory, in the final analysis, it is actually because of the mismatch between supply and demand.
Li said that the National Day holiday lacks basic jobs such as waiters, vegetable delivery workers and Dutch workers, and does not require too high technology and too much labor costs.
Therefore, the salary offered by catering enterprises is not attractive.
Among a group of chefs, the red kitchen. Com observed the latest local recruitment information in Chengdu, and the job in the Netherlands is only 3,000 yuan, and the desk is 4,000 yuan.
Even if it is a wok, most of the wages offered by catering enterprises do not exceed 6000 yuan, even in Beijing, it is only 8000 yuan.
It can be said that this is similar to the salary of a chef ten years ago.
However, house prices and prices ten years ago are different from today's. I'm afraid this salary level is unacceptable to many unemployed chefs at home.
As Li Hongfei said, "Everything is expensive now. If wages don't rise, there will definitely be fewer and fewer people in this line. "
Zong Yang, from Fushun, Liaoning Province, judged that bosses are short of people but still pay such low wages because they always think that there is no shortage of people in these positions. "Do what you like, you won't do it anyway."
In this case, catering enterprises and chefs can't cooperate smoothly, which leads to the "labor shortage" in restaurants and the chefs can't find jobs.
So some chefs choose to wait at home and find jobs slowly through the group of chefs' friends.
Zong Yang said frankly: "To be honest, we still have a chef to stay at home."
Xia Daqing, the chef of a hotel in Wuhan, said from the perspective of the kitchen manager: "Until now, I still know several chefs. I would rather stay at home than work every day than work in the kitchen where he thinks the salary is low. I don't know where he got his money. "
Zhai Guizhong is very dismissive of this: "Instead of sitting at home, it is better to take the initiative to attack, even if it is a stall."
Of course, some chefs would rather lower their wages than take root in an old shop with stable business.
"Listen to the old man in this shop. In the past, the chef was 8 thousand, and the first pot was 6.5 thousand. Later, because of the epidemic, the chef and the first pot left. Later, the chefs who joined the company only gave 5,000 yuan and did not give a dime. "
Therefore, in a fourth-tier city like Zong Yang, a chef with family pressure has to work even if his salary is low, because he knows in his heart that what he needs is stability.
"I didn't go to a store that opened six thousand last year to find me. I can't help it this year. I can only find a stable enough store in a small city. Anyway, it's good to expect to earn 5000 a month this year. Find your own balance point and wait until this year.
Some chefs simply go to other cities to find opportunities.
Red kitchen. Com reported earlier that Jin Shifu, who was the director of cold dishes in a state-owned hotel in Nanjing, was reduced by 1000 yuan after returning to work, leaving him alone in the kitchen, and a new younger brother was responsible for the production of the whole cold dishes room.
According to Jin Shifu, he is also the director of cold dishes, but the salary given by this new Shanxi hotel has doubled directly, and the staff is allocated to five people.
"Fortunately, I have the courage to change the development of the city, and I am also lucky to meet a coal boss. It is much better than staying in Nanjing to do the work of several people, and the salary is also reduced. "
This National Day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday has really given the catering industry a "hard" shot, and the chefs who have returned to work have a "busy" feeling, but on the other hand, there has also been a "labor shortage" for chefs.
It's not that chefs don't look for jobs, but that the conditions provided by catering companies can't impress them.
Chefs who change careers will never look back, even those who have been unemployed at home because they are too old to change careers cannot accept such conditions.
In this regard, Red Kitchen Network suggests that everyone:
1. If you are a kitchen friend who hasn't found a job in a small city, it is recommended to go to a big city and look for opportunities in those cities where catering is fast and people are scarce;
2. If you are a chef who changed careers in a big city, you may wish to take advantage of the lack of people in the industry to see if there is any chance to return to the chef industry;
3. If you are a kitchen friend who already has a job, it is suggested that you should not be half-hearted, but settle down and do a good job because the outside world is not very peaceful.
Let's hope that the chef industry will be better next year than this year.
Author | Sima