Owner of Pizza Hollywood in Middletown RI struggles to find workers
6 min readMIDDLETOWN — For years, Maria Fombellida saw her friends opening businesses and succeeding, and she knew eventually she, too, would like to be a business owner.
She realized her dream in January 2020, right before the COVID pandemic shut everything down, when she purchased Pizza Hollywood on Aquidneck Avenue.
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Fombellida said she made it through the worst of the pandemic, with the help of the pizza shop’s former owners, her employees and a supportive community. But starting a business she knew nothing about during a pandemic was no small feat.
“It was extremely tough because I also didn’t have experience in this kind of business,” she said. “But Justin Long owned this business with his father, and they own Longplex right now in Tiverton. And because they had to close Longplex, he was able to teach me everything here.”
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Also, because the colleges were closed, she was able to keep some of her college-aged employees working for her during the early months of the pandemic.
Business now, she said, is booming at Pizza Hollywood, but what Fombellida lacks is employees. The shortage, she said, is worse than when everything was shut down during the height of COVID.
Fombellida believes the reason for the employee shortage is because of the extra money employees are receiving in their unemployment checks each month, and she doesn’t understand why the incentive to stay home still exists.
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“We’re already not having any masks, we have the vaccines available, everything is open and the government is still paying people to stay home, when there’s hiring everywhere,” she said. “So I don’t understand why the government keeps enabling people to stay home, when every single business is suffering. And I’m not just talking about restaurants … every single business is short-staffed.”
‘People are going back to work’
According to data from the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, people are going back to work. The unemployment rate in June was 5.9 percent compared to last year’s rate of 10.9 percent during the same month.
In May 2020, unemployment across the state was 12.9 percent, and in April 2020, the unemployment rate was the highest it’s been since 1976 — 17.1 percent. In May of 2021, the unemployment rate was listed at 6.0 percent and this past April it was 6.3 percent.
On Thursday, Director of Labor Matthew Weldon said reopening the economy has been a process, but things are starting to get better.
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“When the economy closed, the unemployment system in Rhode Island became exponentially busier than it ever has been in the history of the program,” he said.
Historically, the busiest week for the unemployment system in Rhode Island was during the banking crisis in the early 1990s, when 5,300 people filed for benefits in one week. During the pandemic, there were over a dozen days in which more than 5,300 people applied for benefits.
“We went from having about 11,000 people on unemployment prior to the pandemic to having 120,000 people on unemployment,” Weldon said. “It just got so busy, and that means lots of people in Rhode Island were collecting unemployment benefits.”
When that was happening, there weren’t a lot of jobs for people to go to. Now the economy has reopened, vaccines are available and business restrictions are lifted. Weldon said human behavior has to change to get people back to work, which “is difficult.”
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Still, “we’ve seen people going back to work,” he said. “We reinstated the work search requirement on May 23 and, since then, 10,000 fewer people are seeking payments every week.”
Prior to re-instituting that requirement, Weldon said there were about 68,000 people on unemployment across the state.
“That means people are going back to work. Where they’re working, that’s a different story. So if they’re not going to restaurant’s or hotels, they’re probably going elsewhere,” he said. “Because right now, it’s a job-seeker market. Employers need workers. Workers still have access to benefits until the federal programs expire on Sept. 4, so workers and employees can be a little more selective.”
She might have to reduce hours of operation
Currently, Fombellida has around 15 to 17 employees, but most of them have limited availability. “One person might just work one day, another person might work two days. Their availability is not that open right now,” she said.
Of her employees, she is losing several to college, and if she can’t find more to replace them, Fombellida said she may have to reduce the hours her restaurant is open.
“I’m trying not to even get there,” Fombellida said. “Like many businesses are closing a day a week, or two days a week, or reducing hours — that’s going to have to be my last resort. But I’m trying not to even think about that. I’m trying to stay positive.”
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Fombellida said she’s at Pizza Hollywood 24/7, but she can’t duplicate herself.
“I’m cooking, I’m driving, so if I’m cooking and I don’t have a driver, I can’t cook and drive,” she said. “So that’s when the real problems will be.”
She said she doesn’t mind working all of these hours, but she can’t do three jobs at once.
“This job requires more than one thing. It’s not just making the pizzas,” she said. “It’s the customers and driving, and so that’s the biggest thing. I don’t mind being here 24/7. It’s just that I can’t be in two places at the same time.”
Change is coming on Sept. 5
On Sept. 5, Weldon said things will change when the benefits end and it will again become an employer’s job market. Even then, things could be challenging for Rhode Island’s heavy tourism-based economy.
“We have a summer season, especially down in the Newport and Aquidneck Island area,” Weldon said. “The restaurants are going through a difficult time, and we get it, so we’ve been using every opportunity we can to tell people they need to be looking for work to collect unemployment.
“We’re checking their record to make sure they’re actually looking. We’re stopping claims if people aren’t doing that. We’re not just paying out claims and letting people collect until September. We’re making sure they’re following the rules, and we’re trying to help people.”
Weldon said those who are not actively looking for employment are going to be in a world of hurt after the extended benefits end in September, when they go a week or two without a paycheck.
“We want to try to prevent that if we can,” he said.
For those looking for work, Weldon said there are free resources available to them at www.backtoworkri.com.
“Please take advantages of those resources. Please get reconnected to the economy. Not because your government is telling you to do so, just because it’s the right thing to do for you and our family,” he said.
There are also free resources available to employers who need to find employees.
Weldon said this year he is sure Rhode Island’s unemployment rate will drop down to under 5%.
Still, Business is good
Through all of this, Fombellida said business has been so good at Pizza Hollywood since she purchased the restaurant that goals consistently have been met. “We can’t complain. Customers are amazing. I really can’t complain. It’s just the staff,” she said.
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She’s looking to hire both cooks and drivers. She currently has three cooks, two full-time and one part-time, but one of them will be going to college this week and another is heading of to school in early August.
“It’s really bad,” she said. “If you think that the pandemic was the challenge, this is the real challenge right now.”
Bethany Brunelle can be reached at [email protected] 907-575-8528 or @bethanyfreuden1 on Twitter, Insta: bethanyfreudenthal, TikTok: thehijabicrimereporter, Muckrack: https://muckrack.com/bethany-freudenthal
