Many students are experiencing limited hours and layoffs at their jobs due to the closures of restaurants and businesses because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Students who wait on or bus tables, welcome customers into the restaurant and seat them, and even prepare the food are being left with no job due to the closures.
Freshman Dante Pelino, a server at the new Primanti Bros. in Center Township, is out of work because the business has no need for servers at this time.
“I’m a waiter, so I haven’t been there since before the state closed public places, but it’s all good. I’ve been chilling at home and doing schoolwork,” Pelino said.
Primanti Bros. is doing things to make sure that their employees are being taken care of even though they cannot physically work and make the money that they had been before.
“The managers have been collecting tip money from the carry out and have been texting the workers and offering to buy them anything that they need in this time since we have been out of work,” Pelino said.
Primanti Bros. has also assured its workers that nobody will be fired and that everyone will have their job waiting for them for when the restaurant reopens.
Another restaurant that’s quite close to Penn State Beaver, Eat’n Park, is also still in operation, through only doing take out orders.
Freshman Allyson Pinchot, a server at Eat’n Park, is also out of work due to the restaurant’s dining area being closed until the mandated closures are lifted.
Eat’n Park has laid off some of its workers but has promised those who have been laid off that they will still have their job when they reopen, Pinchot said.
“A lot of people were temporarily laid off, but we’re told we will still have our jobs after all of this. It’s just because they don’t have the capability to hold a full staff at this time,” Pinchot said.
Those who have been laid off from Eat’n Park are eligible to apply for unemployment while they are out of work for this period of time.
“Since I’m seasonal I’m still employed, but I don’t have hours, and I had the option to be laid off to apply for unemployment if I desired to,” Pinchot said.
Not all students are out of work, though. Freshman Zack Thomas, an employee at Target, is still working because Target’s doors remain open as an essential business. But Target is taking precautions to lower the risk of infection to its employees, Thomas said.
“They are providing masks and gloves for the employees and continuously cleaning our workstations,” Thomas said.
He and the other workers are also making sure the customers are safe by cleaning lanes and touch screens after each guest. Target also had its employees place makers in lines to show guests where to stand to stay 6 feet apart.
Thomas also said that there has been a huge influx of pick-up orders as compared to before the pandemic.
“I don’t know the exact number, but there is a huge difference in pick-ups,” Thomas said.