OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — Help wanted signs continue to decorate the sides and fronts of Central Florida businesses, as numerous restaurants search for employees.

What You Need To Know

  •  Many Central Florida businesses are still struggling to fill empty positions

  •  Some businesses, like FL Baker in Kissimmee, are getting help from college interns looking for class credit

  • In the past six months, six Florida Technical College students have helped fill positions at FL Bakery

Kissimmee restaurant and bakery, FL Bakery, began to utilize local technical schools to fill positions.

For the past three months, Thomas Rivera, a U.S. Army veteran, has reported for duty at FL Bakery.

Now, while the pastries he makes are sweet, his journey to get here was sour. Injuries from a scooter crash forced him to leave the construction industry and find a new career.

“I was riding a scooter, there was an oil slick on the floor, I completely flew off,” Rivera said. “It destroyed all this and I could no longer repetitively use power tools and hammers.”

Rivera decided to go to Florida Technical College’s culinary school to pursue his dream. To pass the course, he needed real-life culinary training and that’s when he began to intern at FL Bakery.

“I fell in love with the environment,” Rivera said. “The people here are very, very friendly.”

It couldn’t have come at a better time. One year after opening his bakery, owner Rafael Roman has seen the number of customers going up while the number of workers goes down.

“Unfortunately we have a short staff right now because of the pandemic,” he said.

The bakery opened with a full staff of 50 employees, it’s now down 20 because of the pandemic. In the past six months, six FTC students like Rivera helped to fill some of the voids. The interns don’t get paid, but they earn college credit, and many get hired right away like Rivera.

“These people have good skill and they make the pastries excellent,” Roman said.

“I hope with my set of skills and hopefully the experience I have here I can climb up the ladder,” Rivera said.

Rivera said he plans to return to FTC and continue his culinary studies. He said his end goal was to become head pastry chef at FL Bakery.

Roman said they’re still searching for workers. Wages depend on experience and soon they’ll begin to offer health and retirement benefits, he said.