short-staffed

British  

adjective

1. lacking an adequate number of staff, assistants, etc

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Explanation

If a business is short-staffed, it has fewer workers than usual. When a small cafe is short-staffed, servers might have to help wash dishes and ring customers up at the cash register. A short-staffed workplace suffers from an inadequate number of employees. This can be an ongoing problem: "Don't go to that grocery store, they're constantly short-staffed and the lines are always too long." It can also be a temporary situation, like the day several librarians happened to call in sick, leaving the library short-staffed. The term is from the "having too few" sense of short and the verb staff, "provide with workers."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

short-staffed

Control towers in Long Island and Philadelphia that oversee the region’s airports are chronically short-staffed.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026

Many patients will abruptly lose caregivers who have been with them for years, and facilities that are already strained will be even more short-staffed.

From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2026

One worker said: "There is immense pressure on staff - we are mildly to moderately short-staffed all the time."

From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026

“You’ve been nothing but a distraction and disruption since you’ve been here. I’m already short-staffed and I just lost five nurses and half my environmental services team because you walked in,” he shouts.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2026

Mom had been working overtime because the bookstore she manages is short-staffed.

From "Liar, Liar" by Gary Paulsen