Longtime Charleston chef and restaurant consultant Ben Ellsworth launched his app Gigpro in November 2019 to change the narrative of working in the hospitality industry.
A month later, Nashville became Gigpro’s third market, out of 22 total markets, and remains its third largest behind Charleston and Charlotte. Nashville makes up 15% of Gigpro’s business.
“The only way we are really going to make a change in this industry is by connecting people with the right businesses that are going to take care of them. If we can get the right businesses that are doing the right things staffed up, then they should be able to scale that model and scale that culture,” Ellsworth said in an interview. “Until we change the dialogue of the industry, no one’s going to look back here for a career.”
Gigpro connects hospitality businesses that pay a minimum rate of $15 per hour to professionals in the area. Ziprecruiter estimates, however, that the average hourly wage for a restaurant worker in downtown Nashville is $13 an hour, below Gigpro’s threshold.
There is no subscription needed to use the app and no fee until after the shift or gig is complete. A 21% user-fee is added to the rate of the job, paid by the business. The worker using the app pays 38 cents an hour to cover costs like insurance.
In Nashville 350 businesses — including Nissan Stadium, Bridgestone Arena, Nicoletto’s Italian Kitchen and Sean Brock’s concepts — and 6,700 professionals currently use the app to navigate staffing shortages. That is up from 100 businesses and 1,500 professionals in July 2021.
Ellsworth estimates that 20% of restaurants and hospitality businesses create a livable environment for workers, while 80% don’t. When the pandemic hit, 2.25 million workers in the industry got laid off and only 1.25 million have returned, he said.
A 2021 Joblist survey reported that 50% of hospitality industry workers nationwide that left their job during the pandemic would not go back to their old job.
“I think it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better,” Ellsworth said.
In 2019, the number of employees for full-service restaurants in Davidson County peaked at 24,322. In 2021, numbers were only back to 19,753, after dropping to 16,957 in 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census Employment and Wages data.
The leisure and hospitality industry employed 68,381 in Davidson County in 2019, and employed 55,679 in 2021, according to the same data.
Until that percentage is flipped, the exodus of the industry will continue, Ellsworth said.
“Where we see this labor shortage the most is in the markets that have a large dining scene, they have a high cost of living, they’re experiencing a lot of economic gentrification … so they [workers] get pushed out and barely make enough money to keep their lights on,” Ellsworth said. “You start messing with people’s survival.”
Creating better jobs in the hospitality industry is not just about pay, Ellsworth says.
Average wages in the hospitality industry and in full-service restaurants in Davidson County have risen steadily over the past ten years, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the last year, they’ve risen more dramatically than before as employers try to bring workers back.
The average annual wage for private full-service restaurant workers in Davidson County rose from $26,542 in 2020 to $32,615 in 2021.
For those in the private hospitality and leisure sector, annual wages rose from an average of $38,454 in 2020 to $43,570 in 2021.
Though wages are rising, there is still a large discrepancy between the average paycheck and what it takes for workers to live near their jobs in Nashville’s urban core.
To live comfortably in the city of Nashville, residents must make $80,548 annually, according to a Go Banking Rates study from 2018.
“We are paying more an hour in this industry than we ever have and it’s a start, but it’s not everything,” Ellsworth said. “These things that are completely normal in every other industry — health benefits, dental, vision, 401K, sick days — it still just doesn’t exist. If you give people security, they’ll feel safe and people don’t leave a safe place.”
Ellsworth did not personally feel the impacts of labor shortages until he left his executive chef position at Charleston’s Mercato and began to work as a consultant, helping to open eight restaurants between 2014 to 2018. Looking back, he realizes it was because Mercato provided benefits for its workers, paid a livable wage and fostered a good work environment.
Restaurants need to do away with the old-school mentality of pushing through bad environments and “paying your dues,” Ellsworth said.
“There’s a lot at stake here. Nothing creates culture in this country like food. That’s what’s at stake, sitting down at table with a bunch of other people is the only safe place where everything else melts away. It’s such a foundation of community that you just don’t get at the corporate giants, this community spot to come together and it’s in trouble,” Ellsworth said.
When entering a market, which they will cap at 25 markets for now, Gigpro consults with leaders in the area. In Nashville, some of those leaders were Sean Brock — who was instrumental in encouraging Ellsworth to start Gigpro — Chef Matt Bolus at 404 Kitchen and Chef Chad Newton at East Side Banh Mi.
Ellsworth begins by targeting smaller independent restaurants, the most susceptible to the labor shortage, and expands from there.
Gigpro’s mission is to help businesses in the industry that are trying to do the right thing and wake people up to those that are not.
While many people say that the shortage is caused by people just not wanting to work, Ellsworth says it’s time to stop pointing fingers.
“We have to look inward and stop pointing fingers and say, ‘How can we make it better?’ That’s the only that you find the solution is from the inside. You can’t wait for some external thing to come along and fix your problem,” Ellsworth said.
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