No One Wants To Work And One Waseca Restaurant Has To Pay The Price

Thankfully, after a year of chaos, things are returning to normal... except for one thing. No one wants to work. Nearly every business is looking for new hires. Unfortunately, this has especially hurt the food and retail industry, and one Waseca business is paying the consequent price.

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Starfire Grill is closing until further notice due to staffing shortages. Originally, Club 57 was going to offer the Starfire Grill menu, but alas, that became too big of a challenge for the small number of workers.

The news was greeted with many condolences on the restaurant's Facebook page. One customer wrote:

"You all Work so hard, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. I pray for our local businesses regularly. We will see you at Club 57. 💗"

According to MinnPost:

"Since early 2020, Minnesota’s labor force participation rate, or the percent of people 16 and older who are working or actively looking for work, has dropped from 70.2 percent to 67.7 percent, the lowest it has been since June of 1978, when far fewer women were in the workforce."

In other words, Minnesota has lost about 112,000 workers within the last year, which is roughly the same size of the population of the city of Rochester!

Why are people not working?

There could be numerous answers to this question, but perhaps one is the generous unemployment benefits. Currently, the state of Minnesota is dishing out an extra $300 a week for those filing. 

I mean, if you were making that kind of money without sacrificing your free time, would you find a job?

The extra benefits are scheduled to end September 6th. Hopefully, Starfire Grill will be able to fill these positions this fall. If not, we may lose the business forever.