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V O L . X X V I I N O. I X H O S P I TA L I T Y / T O U R I S M A fter a busy start to 2021, Portland's TIQA Mediterranean restaurant closed in April for three weeks due to a staffing shortage — reflecting an industry-wide hiring crunch brought on by the pandemic. "e options were really horrible," says Deen Haleem, who owns and operates the restaurant inside the Courtyard by Marriott with his wife, Carol Mitchell. "We could have kept our restaurant open, which would have led to really overworking the existing kitchen staff as well as bad service and long wait times." Instead, they're using the time to deep clean and update menus. Two weeks into the closure, the kitchen staff was up to eight, including two senior chefs as the search for a sous chef, baker and a third line cook contin- ued. Frustrated about filling vacancies, Haleem says that interview no-shows are common and even received a message from one applicant who responded to a job ad with upfront demands about start- ing salary, scheduling and paid leave. "I've been in the restaurant busi- ness for seven years and I've honestly never seen anything like this, not even remotely close," Haleem says. While he's paying some new hires 20% to 30% more than he would have two months ago, he says he's unable to go higher to lure people currently receiving state and federal unemployment benefits. Haleem's troubles typify a national prob- lem with strong repercussions in Maine, whose all-important hospitality sector lost thousands of jobs in 2020 and is still struggling to regain its footing. Getting back on track Nationwide, COVID's impact on the travel industry has been nine-times that of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a January report by the American Hotel & Lodging Association. It found that while the indus- try's greatest resource is its workforce, 670,000 direct hotel industry operations jobs and nearly 4 million jobs in the broader hospitality industry were lost in 2020 due to the pandemic. F O C U S I've been in the restaurant business for seven years and I've honestly never seen anything like this, not even remotely close. — Deen Haleem TIQA Mediterranean restaurant P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Deen Haleem, co-owner of TIQA Mediterranean restaurant in Portland, closed the restaurant for three weeks this spring because of a staffing shortage. M AY 3 , 2 0 2 1 16 HIRING CRUNCH Hospitality's newest Maine's restaurants, hotels tout incentives to rebuild depleted workforces B y r e n e e c o r d e S