Restaurants send out SOS for trained staff

By Theresa Garner

Auckland restaurants are headed for an unprecedented staffing crisis.

The shortage is predicted to hit diners in the pocket and embarrass New Zealand in its showcase year.

A panicked hospitality industry is appealing to the Immigration Service to loosen visa restrictions on chefs, waiters, managers and maitre d's.

At least 2500 new restaurant seats are being created in Auckland to coincide with Apec, the millennium and the America's Cup.

At the same time, Olympic hype and higher wages in Sydney are enticing about 100 trained staff a month across the Tasman.

The Immigration Service has promised to help if it can, but has warned the New Zealand Restaurant Association it may have left it too late. The service has to determine the shortage, check the labour market for New Zealanders with the skills, and make sure any overseas applicants have the skills, said spokesman Ian Smith.

"It all takes time, and this is my concern."

He said the service had "front-footed" the issue, by contacting the restaurant association three years ago yet had received no reply.

But some restaurateurs say the service has a closed mind.

The owner of Cin Cin on Quay, Tonci Farac, said New Zealand did not take hospitality seriously.

Last month, the Immigration Service rejected an application for a work permit for a Frenchman. It said there were New Zealanders who could fill the position, said Mr Farac.

"People in the Labour Department think that any person, like a kid working at a checkout in a supermarket, is a potential waiter."

He has been interviewing more than 20 people a day for five weeks, to find more than 100 staff for his new harbourside business, Wildfire.

"Out of them, you are lucky if you can pick two or three."

Mr Farac fears visitors will leave with poor impressions. "We're spending millions marketing New Zealand to the world, but who's going to look after these people?

"The millionaire on the superyacht - he's going to go out to dinner and get asked by some kid: 'How 'bout it, mate, do you want to order or what?'"

The restaurant association chief executive, Neville Waldren, did not believe there were enough trained professional staff to satisfy demand.

"I'm scared we might blow it."

He said pay rates had jumped by up to 30 per cent, as 50 to 60 new operations in Auckland tried to attract staff.

Mr Farac said he was a generous employer, paying waiters with five years' experience $13 an hour, but he had lost two staff to new restaurants offering $17 to $20.

"The wages go up, and our costs go up. We have to pass them on."

He was happy to train staff. "But we need to start from something. I can't have 40 waiters in a restaurant who all need training."

Greg Stanaway, the managing director of recruiter Spectrum International Hospitality Services, said there was a major shortage of chefs with three to five years' experience. Tertiary institutions could not churn out enough graduates to keep pace with sector growth.

Marcus Pearson, assistant head of the Auckland Institute of Technology school of hotel and restaurant studies, said interest had waned in courses nationwide.

The restaurant industry could do more to help itself by releasing staff for training.