The Christmas season is filled with joy for everyone but the University dining hall staff. Sodexo, along with many other catering services, lay off employees during the winter break as well as the summer break.
During the winter break, Sodexo lays off all dining hall staff, unless a catering event is being held where cooks would be needed.
This creates an issue for workers as they lose their jobs during the Christmas break.
Wilyona and Carla, two dining hall staff members at Neumann university, expressed their thoughts about the situation in an interview with NeuPress.
Due to the stigma associated with unemployment, only the first names of the dining hall staff were used.
“I struggle financially a little bit. I had to wait for unemployment which took a while…it was definitely a drop in income, like significantly,” Wilyona stated.
The layoffs cause financial stress and burden for many dining hall staff as many of them rely on this job in order to survive and pay their expenses.
“I’m going back to my other job because I have too many bills to collect unemployment and survive off of that,” Carla said.
Collecting unemployment is not feasible for many workers, as they only receive a small percentage of what they would typically make. While working a second job may be an option for some, others may not be able to work a second job due to lack of transportation or inflexibility of hours with their schedules.
Carla expressed her worries saying, “When I got hired, I was told that I would still be employed through the summer. But I’ve also been told by employees that they were told that, too.”
According to both Carla and Wilyona, Sodexo did not disclose that they would be laid off during the breaks.
“It made me more stressed out at the time more than anything,” Wilyona conveyed.
Being laid off during the holiday season adds additional stress to workers. The lack of communication between employers and employees in terms of allowing workers to know of the layoffs prior to their accepting of the job raises ethical questions about how catering services communicate with their employees.
NeuPress reached out to Catering services for additional information and comments but received no response after making several attempts to contact the company.
After the break is over, employees are able to return to their jobs without having to reapply; however, during the period of unemployment, workers are left on their own to decipher their financial situation.
