JAMES LENZI, a chef who is opening a restaurant near Columbia University, recently posted an ad on Craigslist for an assistant. Salary: $25,000 a year with no benefits.
“The résumés started pouring in,” he said. “Hundreds of them. Chefs, managers, people who’ve worked at the best restaurants in New York.”
Nine of the 300 applicants had Ph.D.’s., he said. “I can’t stop thinking about what’s going to happen to them.”
In New York City, chefs, owners and workers say they cannot remember a time when so many restaurants were closing or struggling, so many restaurant workers were looking for jobs and so few places were hiring. According to the New York State DepartmentricaLabor, after adding 50,000 jobs in less than seven years, the New York City restaurant business lost more than 10,000 jobs between October 2008 and January 2009. More...