More than 90% of Colorado’s restaurants are struggling to find employees despite the governor lifting many restrictions, according to a survey by the Colorado Restaurant Association.

Additionally, 41% of the 195 restaurants that participated in the survey between April 23 and May 7, said they are also having issues retaining their employees.

Chris Fuselier, the owner of Blake Street Tavern in LoDo, says in his 25 years in business, he’s never seen so many people not wanting to work, which is the exact opposite of what he thought would happen when restrictions were lifted.

“I can go back to ’08, ’09 (during the recession), and we had more staff than what we knew what to do with,” Fuselier told The Denver Gazette. “Now, we’re having to offer people signing and referral bonuses to try and get workers.”

Traditionally, Fuselier will spend a couple hundred dollars on advertising on Indeed for work, but last month he spent $4,500 because of the lack of interest, he said.

Currently, the state’s unemployment rate is 6.4%, which is higher than the national average of 6%.

Earlier this week, Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order, which will give Coloradans on unemployment a $1,600 signing bonus incentive to return to the workforce.

The Colorado Jumpstart incentive program allows those who have received at least $25 from unemployment from March 28 to Sunday to earn the bonus if they return to and keep a full-time job.

“We are please that the Governor’s office is taking action to incentive people to return to work through the Colorado Jumpstart incentive program, although we would have preferred it if the program was targeted at the industries impacted the most by the pandemic,” said CRA President and CEO Sonia Riggs in an email statement to The Denver Gazette.

“Eliminating some of the barriers of returning to work — such as childcare issues — with these incentives is a huge step forward for restaurants and small businesses across the state.”

Fuselier is in favor of the incentive and believes it’ll encourage some people to rejoin the workforce, but said nothing will change until the state starts rejecting the federal pandemic benefits the way some states like Arizona, Idaho and Wyoming have.

According to the CRA survey, 65% of the participants believe the primary hiring obstacle was due to people wanting to stay on unemployment benefits.

To recruit workers, employers are having to individually offer signing and referral bonuses, or change their practices, Fuselier said.

“What I’m hearing and seeing is a lot of places are having to temporarily eliminate some of their hours because of the lack of staffing,” he said.

Additionally, the new hires are expecting more money because of of the current unemployment benefits, he said.

Although Blake Street hasn’t been as affected as others where they currently have 110 staff members compared to their pre-pandemic of 125, they need more workers because they added a beer garden.

“If we were an 8-cylinder car, we’re running on 7-cylinders currently,” Fuselier said.

And professionals don’t know how long these conditions will last, Riggs said.

“It’s hard to say how long the staffing shortage will last, but we do estimate the recovery for restaurants from this past year, which was the worst for the industry in living memory, will last three to five years,” Riggs said.

Colorado restaurants across the state lost more than $3 billion dollars last year, according to CRA.

And while Polis’ incentive is a great start at encouraging people to return to the workforce, there is still much more to be done until the extra federal unemployment benefits stop, Fuselier said.

“There has to be marketing campaigns to get people to return to work, recruiting bonuses, signing bonuses to get these people back,” Fuselier said. “Hopefully it’ll happen sooner than later, but until then a lot of us are going to continue to struggle.”