Borghese: “I can’t find employees, young people ask for guarantees”

After the coronavirus pandemic and in light of a perennial lack of employees “surely we have to work differently. It’s already happening: I was open seven days a week pre-pandemic, now five. I would like to go back to six, but I will keep a closed day. Rest and shifts are fundamental. I am constantly looking for collaborators: but I struggle to find new profiles, both for the kitchen and for the dining room “. Alessandro Borghese, cook and television personality, explains this in an interview with Corriere della Sera, confirming the problem linked to the flight of staff from restaurants. “While my generation has grown up working at a crazy pace – acknowledges Borghese – today the mentality has changed: those who enter this profession want guarantees. Higher salaries, regulated shifts, growth paths. In exchange for the sacrifice of time, young people they ask for certainties and gratifications. In fact, before this job was underpaid: today kids don’t accept it “. “Time, today, is the real currency. My own brigade – he reveals – has radically revolutionized: figures who had been with me for more than ten years have gone away, they have returned to their regions of origin, where they have chosen a work that required less psychological, mental and physical fatigue “. The lack of staff prevents the catering sector from “working as we could: finally there is a scent of restarting, waiting lists are back in bookings, this gives us hope and makes us proud. But we have to give up opportunities because there are no resources. Before Covid – he remembers – there was a queue of young people outside restaurants, today you no longer want to do this job “. “I can’t hire – he explains – because many are not really looking, it is clear that they are not interested. Others take advantage of the situation: they know that there is a lot of demand so they make excessive demands. I look for the measure: people who may not know how to cook very well, but that they are educated and eager to learn. My company will be able to reward them – he explains -, we also offer English and sommelier courses to employees, but a relationship of mutual trust must be established “. For Borghese “you need to be serious employers, to give perspectives. If we want this sector to be central to Italy, it is the only way. Without qualified personnel we won’t go anywhere, if they feel bad, customers won’t come back”.