Local businesses having trouble finding workers

Juanny Romero sounded discouraged as she explained how her cafe Mothership Coffee Roasters has struggled to fill job openings at its downtown Las Vegas and Henderson locations.

Heart Attack Grill owner Jon Basso described his experience finding workers for his downtown Las Vegas restaurant as a “nightmare.”

A number of companies in Nevada are reporting difficulty filling positions even though the state’s unemployment rate remains high.

Nevada State Bank released its annual Small Business Survey on Thursday. It showed that more than 70 percent of the 400 respondents “find it somewhat to very difficult to recruit quality job candidates in the Nevada market.”

“They’re not showing up to interviews,” Romero said. “It’s very demoralizing for my HR team to deal with, so we have changed the criteria as of (last week). If you have no job experience, that’s fine. We’re willing to work with people who are just amazing, bright individuals who are kind and caring. If you have these qualities, we’ll work with you.”

Nevada was among the states hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic last year, reaching a record unemployment rate of 29.5 percent in April.

Data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Nevada’s unemployment rate has slowly improved, but it’s still among the highest in the country, tying with New Mexico at No. 5.

February’s unemployment rate was 8.3 percent, down from 8.5 percent in January, but up by 4.6 percent year over year. The national unemployment rate is 6.2 percent, according to the bureau.

Employers might think that Nevada’s high unemployment rate would make hiring easy, but staffing expert Damian Garcia said the pandemic has shifted what applicants are seeking.

“Las Vegas is still at 10 percent unemployment, so a company owner feels like there should be a pretty good pool of candidates. They’re going about their traditional hiring method,” said Garcia, regional vice president for professional staffing company Robert Half. “But on the candidate side, oh, my gosh, I can’t tell you how many people I talk to every single day that will take less money — significantly less money — if it’s remote.”

He pointed to a recent remote job opening that received nearly 100 applications by 8 a.m. after he posted the job the previous day around 5:30 p.m.

‘Not the lowest-risk’

Romero, who also runs Sunrise Coffee, said the past year has taken a toll on the business. Shortly after the state-mandated shutdown in March, the Mothership Coffee downtown location lost about 90 percent of its business. She cut her salary and offered drive-thru, delivery and walk-up service for customers to minimize employee layoffs.

Romero said last week’s rollout of Gov. Steve Sisolak’s capacity increase for casinos and restaurants from 25 percent to 50 percent of occupancy levels was encouraging but social distancing “hasn’t really changed how many chairs we put out.”

Still, she has seen a slight uptick in foot traffic.

Romero said she’s looking to hire a large number of people. Typically, the company is able to hire job seekers who stop by the cafe with a resume in hand, but it’s also started using online job boards.

“It’s been very difficult,” she said. “The other thing is people coming in wanting to work and then feeling it’s just too soon … because, yeah, cafes are not the lowest-risk jobs in the world. You’re not sitting at your home office working away getting paid. You do have to get in contact with customers.”

The pandemic forced employers to implement remote work and the once not-so-mainstream setup has led many workers to prefer staying at home.

Garcia noted employers are underestimating the demand for remote work by today’s job seekers.

“We have more jobs than we have people right now and these are good paying, long-term contract to permanent or permanent roles with reputable companies but if they’re on-site we’re having to offer more compensation, which some companies are starting to do,” he said. “Some companies just aren’t there yet because it’s a budget concern or they’re seeing the 10 percent unemployment (in Vegas) but that 10 percent looking for jobs, I would say 80 percent would take less pay and do different roles if it was remote.”

Swelling ranks

Advance Auto Parts Senior Human Resource Manager Greg Brown admits applicants are still concerned about working in a setting that demands face-to-face customer interaction.

“We have noticed the overall candidate pool has receded,” Brown said in an emailed statement. “There’s still a hesitancy for some people regarding working in a retail setting with increased in-person interaction, even with our strict cleaning and social distancing protocols enacted last year in every Advance location.”

The auto parts and accessories retailer has about 100 job openings in Southern Nevada. It’s also planning to open five more Advance locations in the area this year.

Brown said the company has been able to find quality candidates. It’s also held socially distanced in-person recruiting events “to give interested applicants the opportunity to visit a store and learn more about Advance.”

Basso of Heart Attack Grill said one thing he’s doing differently is advertising positions, noting the restaurant needs about five more workers.

“For the first time, I’ve actually had to take out ads and try to bring people in,” he said. “I will be performing most of those $12 an hour tasks myself because we simply can’t find people. And you know, I’m 55 years old. I don’t move as quick as I used to.”

Garcia said he’s been with Robert Half for 21 years and has never witnessed such a strong shift among workers.

“Employers and employees always have different priorities,” he said. “They never completely align, but I’ve never seen anything like this where job seekers are in such high demand but they’re also demanding they work remotely.”

Contact Subrina Hudson at shudson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Follow @SubrinaH on Twitter.