As students head back to school, local businesses face blow to workforce

PITTSBURGH — Employers who’ve struggled to hire amid the nationwide labor shortage are now faced with even more vacancies as young workers prepare to head back to school.

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Steve Negri, owner of Mandy’s Pizza in West View, said roughly half of his employees are students. He lost several college kids last week and is preparing for his high schoolers to head back to the classroom.

“They stay on, they go from working four days to maybe two days or one day,” he said. “It puts a damper on things, but we try to work it out as best as possible.”

Negri said in the past, he’s been able to find new employees to work those open shifts, but now it’s become more difficult.

“I put on my Facebook page ‘we’re short-handed, please be patient with the staff,’” he said.

Maria Marthas, General Manager at Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream in McCandless is in the same boat.

“We just lost so many, so quickly, it’s really hard.”

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She said most of her high schoolers are involved in sports or other activities, so between practices, games and homework, they have to cut hours drastically if they can even continue working at all.

“I’ve been posting that we’ve been hiring for the past couple of weeks, we’re putting up signs now for open interviews and everything, but it’s been tough,” she told us.

It’s a situation impacting a number of industries beyond restaurants and eateries.

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Recently, Bellevue Borough posted on Facebook that the pool is closing this weekend, as lifeguards head back to school. The post indicated it was tough to find those employees to begin with.

“It’s been a struggle and we need workers because people need care,” she said. “We have a lot of people with disabilities who need care.”Barbara Greer, HR Recruiter for Integrity Home Care, said they’ve been offering bonuses for new hires as well as referral bonuses for current employees.

“We’re just doing everything we can to attract people,” she said. “We’ve had people who’ve said they make more money on unemployment and so, they’re not working.”

Greer said she is losing about seven employees as they return to college. She is particularly in need of home health aides.

Lubert-Adler celebrates the completion of the Kaufmann’s redevelopment in downtown Pittsburgh