Malta needs a top-down plan to solve its staffing crisis in the catering industry, a local chef has warned, while one restaurant owner has spoken of having to turn down business due to the shortage of employees.

As a result of the exodus of foreign staff from Malta when the hospitality industry was largely forced to shut down during the pandemic, some business owners are now unable to open every day in a week due to severe lack of staff, chef Sean Gravina, who runs an eatery in Paceville told Times of Malta.

“This is not only a Malta issue, in a way, it really needs to be tackled at a European level, because it’s a serious problem many friends and colleagues around Europe are facing,” he said.

“Restaurants are having to close down a couple of days a week due to lack of staff, and others have had to close entirely. And it’s going to keep happening. If there’s not enough staff to turnover and you have to close for a couple of weeks, your rent, your fixed costs are still adding up and eventually you will have to shut down. More restaurants will close because of a lack of staff, this is not healthy at all and will have a domino effect up the supply chain.”

While a common answer to calls for more staff is frequently higher wages, Gravina says this is a misnomer and hurts business owners who pay their staff a decent wage.

“If a job is paying too low, then don’t work there, but in order to get a decent rate per hour you do need to have the skills and experience to back it up,” he said.

“We also have to keep our expectations realistic, there is a threshold on what a waiter can earn per hour, and you can’t pay a waiter as much as you pay a chef, it’s simply not sustainable. That being said, I doubt there are too many good restaurants paying the minimum wage as base pay, because that certainly doesn’t make sense either.”

Gravina said restaurants should be regularised in a way that disincentivises poaching and keeps the industry stable.

“Staff will keep reducing as more restaurants are opening, we are facing a massive problem of demand and supply. What happens next is a culture of poaching that will create unrealistic wage expectations and that is ultimately not sustainable for those restaurants,” he said.

At the rate we are going right now, the industry is going to be overstretched... It’s not about greed, it’s about realistically being able to make ends meet

“It’s all short term, when that unsustainability comes to its conclusion, restaurants will close and people will lose their jobs, so it’s not the solution people think it is.

“Now I don’t mean that new restaurants shouldn’t be allowed to open, but say if it’s a foreign person who wants to start a business here, let’s oblige them to bring a certain percentage of the workforce from their own country, I think that makes sense.

“At the rate we are going right now, the industry is going to be overstretched. It’s not an issue of work, because business is starting to recover. It’s not about greed, it’s about realistically being able to make ends meet.”

Restauranter Rafel Sammut said the catering industry was struggling to fill both skilled and unskilled positions as personnel are not only poached within the industry but from other professions as well.”

“I can’t even find someone to come in as a cleaner, the market is completely saturated,” he said.

Sammut said the hesitance of Maltese teens in taking up summer jobs may also be contributing to the issue, as fewer and fewer fresh workers new to the job market show an interest in catering.

“More prominence in schooling and focussing catering courses to build practical skills might help to raise interest in the profession, because I think we’re at the point where we need to start from scratch,” Sammut said.

“I got my first summer job at 13, nowadays kids tell me they’re ashamed to get a job in a restaurant because they’re looked down upon. And it’s a shame, what with the emergence of sectors like gaming, the industry is being stigmatised. I think more effort should be made to show the bright side of it all.”

The current staffing crisis, he added, had forced him to turn down catering jobs.

“We’re having to turn down business and say no to people on almost a weekly basis. How can you not feel it, it kills you a little.”

Former Times of Malta food critic Ed Eats said that while Malta had a culture problem in terms of being permissive of subpar service, a certain level of experience and skill in service would undoubtedly come with higher wage expectations.

“There have been instances where my dish went to the next table, which is fine overall, but if you can’t tell the difference between fish and a pork belly it says something overall about the standards we are used to,” he said.

“I think this is a symptom of a situation that we have been experiencing for a long time, which in some ways I struggle to empathise with if people are getting low wages for long hours of service.

“High rents and cost of life issues are a problem for service industry professionals, and now that there aren’t enough people to go around I can understand why they’re reluctant to return to it.

“I think people find it degrading because we’ve treated it badly for a long time. A good front of house can make or break your business and really be the key ingredient to a wonderful dining experience.”