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Portland restaurants struggled with hiring. COVID made it worse.


Portland restaurants struggled with hiring. COVID made it worse.
After a year of double-digit declines in business that saw some restaurant workers leave for good, owners are having trouble finding summer staff, particularly for back of the house jobs like sous chef and dishwasher.
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Zack Ball works as the expeditor on the line during a lunch shift at Luke’s Lobster. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
This is the fourth of five parts in our series on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Portland’s restaurants.
Say you are the owner of a popular, on-the-peninsula restaurant in Portland gearing up for an ordinary summer tourism season. To handle the crowds, you’ll be expanding your staff, in some cases as much as doubling it. For about five years now, hiring for the summer has been a challenge, an annual chore that’s begun to feel as burdensome and as certain as death and taxes. With so many restaurants in town, there simply aren’t enough skilled ....

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