A number of restaurant and shop owners are struggling to find staff for the Christmas reopening as many workers feel coming off the PUP is "not worth it".
Richard Guiney of the Dublin Town business group said that a number of businesses are suffering as people are hesitant to give up the pandemic unemployment payment as they fear they may be out of work after the Christmas period.
"Some big retailers are not having problems, but many staff feel it’s not worth it this year.
“Many workers want to stick with the PUP and are worried that if they come off it, it might just be for a few weeks and then they could be out of work again,” he told the Irish Independent.
Adrien Cummings, CEO of the Restaurant Association of Ireland, said that restaurants and cafes are having a difficult time convincing workers to come back to the industry.
He said: "40% of the industry is gone, another 20% is still on the PUP.
"We’re trying to attract them back into the industry and we’re finding it difficult at the moment because they are earning €350 and there is a bonus payment in the first week.
"So we are finding it hard to fill on the vacancies that we have," he told Newstalk's Lunchtime Live this morning.
The PUP is paid at four different rates - €203, €250, €300 and €350.
Employer Kieran said that it has been "significantly more difficult" to find workers in 2020 compared to 2019 as his business has had to revert to using agencies to recruit staff.
"In 2019 we had a role we had to fill and in May 2019 we had a 109 CVs. in July 2020 we had only five for a very similar role. So we’re definitely having a problem."
He added that one of his staff members resigned when she was asked to come back to work.
He told Newstalk: "What she said to us was, ‘I work 35 hours a week, and I get €450 a week. I can stay at home for €350 a week. It costs me €100 a week to come to work with parking, lunches, or whatever. It’s economically not viable for me to go to work'."
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