Toronto restaurant owner jokes about hiring people for $1 million per hour to attract staff

A Toronto restaurant owner recently made a job posting joking they were hiring people for a pay rate of a million dollars per hour, to mixed responses from the hospitality community.

"Looking for some really awesome BOH staff to add to our already awesome crew. $1,000,000.00/hour," reads the posting from Century Park Tavern owner Paul Marshall in local Facebook group Food and Wine Industry Navigator. 

While some people were a bit wary of the strategy to attract staff, most people took the joke lightly.

"Is this like some backhanded comment about group members asking for wage transparency?" someone asked.  "I think it's more of a joke," someone responded. "Chill."

Most people were joking right back in comments on the post.

"Sounds good, but I can only work 1 hr a week," someone commented. "Before or after taxes?" said someone else. "No benefits? Terrible employer. Shame shame," someone remarked sarcastically.

Other people had joking comments that still reflected on the state of the industry where hiring and finding good jobs is a rollercoaster right now:

"You'll still get 20 no shows for an interview," "how many non-paid training shifts do I have to do ... before I'm laid off?" and "You will get 20 applicants, but only one will show for scheduled interview, and then ask if you have a bar position open instead."

Marshall confirms the staffing landscape is bleak right now, and this is why he created the jokey posting: a previous serious post got zero responses.

"I decided to put that post out to at least prompt any sort of response or reaction to at least see if anyone was reading or hearing me," Marshall tells blogTO.

"I think society has come to the realization that no matter what you put online you will obviously have people out there with negative feedback, it just comes with human nature now so you can't really worry about it."

The best part is, the post actually worked.

"I did happen to get a few very good resumes that turned into two new staff that are awesome and that’s all I was really looking for," says Marshall.

"It's hard out there finding great people and at Love Chix and Century Park Tavern we have very limited turnover in our staff over the past six years so we just need to add a few good pieces here and there."