‘It burns my staff’: Restaurant in Baie Saint-Paul has to close, due to shortage of foreign workers

The labor shortage is hitting the county’s merchants hard, and in Baie Saint-Paul, the restaurateur had no choice but to temporarily close its doors.

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Donald Duchesne is the owner of Orange Bistro. For several months now, the restaurateur has had difficulties in hiring workers, especially abroad.

The procedures for hiring workers began in December 2021.

“[Je n’ai] there are not any news till now. [Toutefois]I heard this week messenger The staff we chose. It’s another 8 weeks. My boss told me he wouldn’t believe me until he saw the new workers.”

“I had promised my chef to get cooks, but I didn’t honor my word, because of the deadlines […]. At the beginning of July 2022, they were supposed to arrive. All documents were accepted in April and May, says Mr Duchesne.

Several factors explain the delay in procedures, according to the restorer.

Initially, it was the federal bureaucracy. It’s been more than a month than usual. He stressed that the permits issued by Morocco instead of 4 weeks after the outbreak of the epidemic were more than 16 weeks.

For existing employees, working without the promised reinforcements has become very difficult, which explains the temporary shutdown.

“It burns my employees, and there is always the risk of losing them, because they are tired of not having normal working hours,” sums up the Baie Saint-Paul entrepreneur.

He stressed the need to simplify the procedures for recruiting expatriate workers.