OHIO, USA — If you've been to or driven by a restaurant recently, there's a good chance you've seen a call for employees.
Dozens of restaurants, particularly local ones, are struggling to find workers.
"We decided as a family, after we lost an entire shift, we had to end up closing it," said Phillip Dionyssiou, co-owner of Rudy's Hog Dog.
Phillip and Paula Dionyssiou run the local chain and made the tough decision to temporarily close their Sylvania location after not being able to properly staff it.
"The managers were working 50 to 60 hours a week and they just said 'we can't do it anymore,'" said Phillip.
"We've just gotten to the point that we said 'you know what, the best thing for us to do at this point is to decide we will just temporarily close,'" added Paula.
They are not the only business that has closed temporarily or adjusted hours to stay afloat.
"We've cut back our hours, we've cut back the amount of carry out we take in, we've closed on Sundays," said Geoff Kies, owner of Luckie's Barn and Grill in Oregon.
Luckie's is currently short-staffed and has been for the past year or so. Kies is increasing the starting pay for workers to $17 an hour in hopes of recruiting workers who will stay for quite some time.
Kies says many employees have stepped up their duties to fill in the gaps and keep customers coming back.
"I do a little bit of everything. I come in, do my prep I need to do for the line. All the new people coming in, I show them what to do, tell them how everything operates here," said Jeff Harrell, an 8-year employee of Luckie's.
While Kies has a solid core group of employees, he believes the restaurant industry as a whole is losing "would be workers" to big box companies like Amazon, who come to town and offer competitive pay and benefits.
He plans to do the same.
"In an attempt to be better than Amazon, better than Home Depot, we have medical, we have a retirement plan, so now we're on par with these big companies!" said Kies.
Kies added it's not just the restaurant industry struggling to get workers; many of the supply companies he works with are also struggling.
While Ohio jobless claims are improving, there is still room for improvement.
The number of Ohioans who filed initial claims over the past three weeks has dropped by about 23,000.
However, over the past 57 weeks, the combined total of jobless claims filed here in Ohio was still more than the combined total from 2013- 2019, coming just shy of three million.