HRA LAUNCHES PROGRAM

The Hawaii Restaurant Association announced Thursday the launch of a nonprofit arm of its organization, the Educational Foundation, which was created as a way to bolster the restaurant industry’s workforce at the high school level. The foundation aims to address staffing challenges in the restaurant and hospitality industries, a particular pain point with the current low unemployment rate. “Hawaii’s foodservice industry has been struggling for years to recruit and retain a quality workforce to service our hospitality industry,” Hide Sakurai, chairman and co-founder of the HRA Educational Foundation and president of restaurant company Diamond Dining, said in a statement. “With the state’s unemployment rate currently around two percent, the challenge has been further magnified and thus the desire of the Hawaii Restaurant Association to find new ways to excite Hawaii’s youth about careers in the culinary and hospitality fields.” Read full article