St. Louis Frozen Pizza Company Offering 3-day Work Weeks to Attract New Employees

Produced by KSDK, July 8, 2022.

ST. LOUIS — Employers all across the St. Louis area are looking to fill open positions, which is pushing them to get creative and competitive about what they can offer.

Lucia's Pizza is offering a three-day work week to try and get new employees in the door and they're not alone when it comes to hiring incentives, job centers say they’re essential.

Staff at Lucia's Pizza have been slinging up frozen pizzas for 40 years in St. Louis.

Company President Scott Ashby said demand has grown so much they need to hire 30 additional people to keep up.

“From the pandemic, obviously pizzas one of those categories that grew. It’s a great meal for kids and what not so our business grew,” Ashby said.

But they had to get creative to compete with everyone else looking for workers it’s an idea they modeled off of the healthcare industry.

“You work three, 12-hour shifts over a six-day period, Monday through Saturday. It doesn’t have to be consecutive. If you show up and work the full 36 hours you get four free hours. Just to make an easier to understand example, at $15 an hour, it equates to $3,000 a year raise just to show up for work and you get four days off a week to do whatever you want,” Ashby said.

Rebecca Ritter with SLATE Missouri Job Center said it’s essential for employers right now to offer all sorts of incentives and benefits to not only keep current employees but hire new ones.

“The employees and the job seekers are saying, ‘Hey what could you do that the other employer is not doing?' or 'What is my life going to look like if I work for you?’ and is that accommodating for the lifestyle they have now,” Ritter said.

Ritter said ever since the pandemic, wage increases have not been enough and now more than ever people are valuing the quality of their lives. 

“When there were wage increases there were people that were still saying no my health is way more important so there does have to be a holistic approach,” Ritter said.

The Missouri Job Center said employers across the board are offering higher wages or bonuses, more benefits, more days off and even tuition assistance.

Ritter said if you’re looking to shift careers now is the time to do it. For more information about getting employment resources click here.