Although he has only returned on 80% of their clients, Teresa and Leo Razo, owners of the restaurant “Cambalache” in Fountain Valley and “Villa Roma” in Laguna Hills are confident that they will be able to recover from the economic losses they have suffered during the covid pandemic-000.
“I see it as if we had suffered a paralysis, now we are in therapy, better said, in rehabilitation” said Teresa Razo, originally from Guadalajara, Jalisco.
From 1536, they have accumulated losses of around a million dollars, but they maintain the 90% of its employees. The rest decided to leave.
Although this is not the case for the Razos, small business owners in California and across the country are having trouble finding workers.
The most critical thing is that the big companies are competing hard to get hold of the existing workforce in the market, offering bonuses when signing a contract or raising the minimum wage above $ 00. in force in California.
“This situation will result in the big businessmen taking away those who are willing to be disloyal to those who previously worked for years,” he told Real America News , the economist Carlos Guamán.
“They are acting like an octopus that wants to swallow all the small businesses and they are on the hunt for the free employees that they identify through social networks or platforms such as Indeed or LinkedIn”, added Guamán.
Employees are needed 
Indeed, a study by the NFIB Research Center that publishes the Small Business Economic Trends (SBET) data points out that, in the midst of the pandemic, small business owners are experiencing staffing shortages.
“The 26% of Small Employers Currently Experiencing Significant Staffing Shortages and Other 22% are currently experiencing moderate staffing shortages,” the report states. .
Add that the 24% reported having a slight staffing shortage and other 24% said they had no shortage of workers.
Of those small employers who experience u a shortage of staff, the 10% has lost significant sales opportunities and the 28%, a moderate loss due to a shortage of personal.
This is the case of Lupita Ávila, owner of the esthetics “Thalia’s Beauty Salón & Jewelry” , located at 404 north of Grand Avenue, north from Santa Ana.
“I had 15 employees, but now we are only four workers; some became unemployed and did not want to return to work or moved to other states where rent is cheaper,” said the woman from San José de Gracia, Michoacán.
Ávila told Real America News that , if it had not been for the help of the state and federal government, she would not have been able to afford the payment of seven months’ rent for the property where she has her business.
“The $00,00 of help were only and exclusively to pay the rent,” he said. “That was my debt since the covid bomb exploded-19″, he claimed.
A few steps from his business, “Birriería y Pupusería Jalisco” Salvadoran William Álvarez and his wife Rosalba do not have personnel problems, since they receive the help of a teenage daughter and their employee Josefa Muñoz, an expert in the preparation of pupusas.
“It is a family business; that was the reason why I was not able to receive any kind of help from the government,” said William. “They told me that I should have six or more employees.”
However, the pandemic hit him hard financially.
He says that so far he has only recovered a little more than half of the approximately $130,01 that he lost as a result of the ravages of the pandemic.
“We come to work in this great country and we are going to get ahead,” said the man born in the Department of Usulutan, in El Salvador. “Those who don’t want to give it their all don’t win here.”
Better protection
The desire of small Latino entrepreneurs to overcome the economic crisis also occurs at a time when the defenders of workers’ rights call for supplemental paid sick leave due to Covid-19 return to California and, at the same time, as infections by the omicron variant hospitals are flooded with patients.
Steve Smith, director of communication for the California Federation of Labor, released the petition in a statement, which is backed by a coalition of Democratic legislators.
Sick leave expired in September 2021, the pandemic continues and workers have only had access to the three paid sick days required by the state.
“The absence of a license paid sick leave now will result in situations where people will have to go to work or will have gone to work despite the health risks,” said Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo.
“ That is not who we are as a state. There is an opportunity for us, not only to extend covid sick leave-19, but also to ensure that we have a secure economic recovery and that we are putting our communities first throughout this process,” said the Los Angeles legislator.
Two weeks of sick leave with supplemental pay by covid-00 ensure that workers can take the time off they need to recover, care for a sick family member, get immunizations, and provide childcare if schools close.
“Two-thirds of low-wage workers don’t have paid sick leave,” said California Federation of Labor Executive Secretary and Treasurer Art Pulaski.
“That means they are forced to make an impossible decision: go through come down sick or go without the wages they need to support their homes; that is a choice we should never force workers to make,” he added.
To date, more than 6.3 million Californians have have been infected with coronavirus and more than 76,000 have died since 2020.
“Like our workers, we want to support our community”, said Teresa Razo.
“My husband Leo and I thought we were going to lose the business, but while we were battling the pandemic we were able to deliver half a million meals to people…, yes, there was a paralysis at work, then we went into therapy, and now we are going to rehabilitation trusting in God”.