Staffing

Indeed, OpenTable team up to accelerate U.S. restaurant recovery

iStock Photo

September 29, 2021

Job site Indeed and reservation company OpenTable are launching a month-long U.S. hiring initiative called Interview Days: Restaurant Jobs, which begins on October 1.

The effort aims to accelerate the recovery of the food and beverage industry by providing free hiring tools to help businesses and restaurateurs source, screen and host interviews. A dedicated portal will also empower job seekers to discover open positions and access resources to help them succeed in their job search in the restaurant industry, according to a press release.

"It has been an extraordinarily hard time for local restaurant and food service businesses. When the pandemic hit last year, many had to shut down or significantly reduce operations. Now as they reopen and more people want to return to in-person dining, local restaurants and food service employers are struggling to hire enough qualified workers to meet the consumer demand that will help them rebuild," Raj Mukherjee, SVP and GM of SMB at Indeed, said in the release. "With this hiring initiative, we want to help employers navigate the current labor market, using our resources to highlight their open roles and to help them hire job seekers interested in careers in the industry."

"Throughout the pandemic, we focused our energy on tech solutions to help our partners survive and navigate changing protocols, but now, we need to bring awareness to the labor shortage," Debby Soo, CEO, OpenTable, said in the release. "Staffing is one of the most pressing challenges facing restaurants today - we're excited to partner with Indeed to help restaurants overcome this latest obstacle on their road to recovery."

Indeed and OpenTable are partnering with restaurateur Martha Hoover, founder and president of Patachou Inc.

"If you think that restaurants are merely places to grab meals, I want to challenge that idea. Restaurants are much more than that. Restaurants create change in neighborhoods; they create change in cities. They are where world-changing ideas happen," Hoover said in the release. "They are also places of opportunity for those who work in them. We need employees now — that's why I was happy to team up with OpenTable and Indeed to bring awareness to the industry's ongoing labor shortage and help bring staff back to restaurants."