Vying for workers

I read your article about staffing shortages in Durango restaurants (Oct. 6, 2022) and thought I’d offer some insight. Durango’s restaurants per capita is insane. We have a restaurant for every 99 people here, whereas a place like San Francisco has one per almost 200 people, for perspective. This makes the pool of candidates to choose from within working age slim.

Durango has been growing and expanding other industries that pull potential employees from otherwise alright restaurant jobs. One great example of that is dispensaries. I worked restaurants here before going into the dispensary industry in pursuit of higher wages. I’ve seen at least 10 to 20 restaurant workers take on budtending in the last four years, because to make $25-35 an hour is necessary in Durango, not $13-19 an hour.

If restaurants don’t want to babysit teens, they need to stop paying teens $13-19/hour. I understand the unfortunate reality that restaurant margins can’t handle it without doubling down or increasing prices, but it’s 2023 – time to figure it out. I make $35 an hour and own a home in Durango fully paid, and I’m still looking at building a life in the Midwest where things aren’t impossibly, outrageously expensive. I will come back as part of the problem with many rentals and not contributing to the local workforce, only because Durango demands this from its residents to survive. 

– Tyler Spoo, Durango