Due to the closure of restaurants for long months, some seasonal restaurant workers seem to have fled this sector of activity.

At the microphone of Europe 1, professionals from the Lyon region say they fear a lack of arms when the establishments reopen, still expected in mid-May.

DECRYPTION

Despite the announcement of a possible reopening of the terraces of bars and restaurants in mid-May, concerns are mounting on the side of restaurant owners.

After calling for details of the timetable to anticipate the recovery as well as possible, a new problem could penalize some of these professionals: the lack of seasonal workers at the reopening.

In Lyon, the owners of establishments are thus expressing their fear at the microphone of Europe 1. Because in the face of the length of the Covid-19 health crisis, some of their usual seasonal workers have left to work in other sectors.

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"Some don't want to do the job like that anymore"

While the restaurants have remained closed in recent months, "there are a lot of trades who were looking for labor during this period, whether it is the building or the delivery", notes Yann Lalle, owner of the Lyon stopper. Le Poêlon d'Or.

For him, the recovery promises to be "complicated".

He is convinced that seasonal workers "will not return to the restaurant business" after having "had to reorient themselves in other sectors of activity so as not to have to suffer enormous loss of income".

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Head of the Union of Trades and Industries of the Hotel Industry (Umih, the restaurant owners' union) in the Rhône, Thierry Fontaine estimates that between 100,000 and 150,000 employees should thus be missing from the call for the reopening.

"Some people no longer want to do the job like that, with the mask, the gel, the reminder book (to trace Covid patients, editor's note)", he adds by way of explanation.

According to him, seasonal workers even go "abroad, because certain countries offer them a slightly more concrete perspective of the future".

"Everything is done to ensure that we have a minimum of shortages"

Invited Sunday on Europe 1, Thierry Grégoire, the president of the seasonal Umih at the national level, recognizes that many seasonal workers "have not returned to work since 2019, it is very long".

But it tempers somewhat the concerns of restaurateurs.

"Everything has been done with the government to preserve employment contracts as much as possible, especially for seasonal workers," he said.

According to him, therefore, "everything is done to ensure that there is a minimum of shortage".

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For Thierry Grégoire, the most urgent thing is to remedy the "shortage of customers and precise dates" concerning the reopening.

These are essential "to continue to recruit and thus ensure that there is as little shortage as possible", he underlines.

In Lyon as elsewhere, the most urgent fight for restaurateurs seems above all to obtain from the communities the necessary authorizations to use certain parking spaces or part of the public space in order to enlarge their terraces.