Leading European hotel chains accept employees without experience and experience. Business leaders admit that they have taken revenge for years of underpaying employees and are now unable to find enough workers to meet the demand that is reviving in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thousands of workers left the hospitality and food service industry as international tourism ground to a halt during the pandemic. Many of them found better-paying jobs elsewhere and decided not to return to the tourism industry, Reuters reported.
Europe’s largest hotel company Accor has launched a test project employing people who have never worked in the industry before, CEO Sébastien Bazin told Reuters. Accor operates hotels under brands such as Mercure, Ibis and Fairmont in more than 110 countries and needs 35,000 employees worldwide.
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According to Bazin, Accor is now filling positions in France with young people and migrants, and at the same time it has to reduce its services. For example, the company opens restaurants only five days a week or only for a limited time. New employees then receive only six hours of training and learn on the job.
We start from scratch
The lack of staff is particularly acute in Spain and Portugal, where tourism accounted for 13 percent and 15 percent of gross domestic product before the pandemic. Hoteliers there offer higher salaries, free accommodation and benefits such as bonuses and health insurance.
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„Many employees have decided to move to other sectors, so we are starting from scratch in the industry and have to fight for talent,” said the general manager of the Meliá hotel chain, Gabriel Excarrer. The company recently started offering accommodation to attract employees, even directly in hotel rooms, if there is not enough rental housing nearby.
The need to limit services
Smaller hoteliers also face similar personnel problems. The operations director of one of Lisbon’s best-known hotels, Mundial, said they are currently looking to recruit 59 employees. He fears that without enough staff, hotels will have to reduce the number of guests and limit the range of services provided. “This is unfortunate and tragic for an industry that has had no revenue for the past two years,” he said.
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The tourism industry’s long-coveted bookings have arrived, but there’s been trouble satisfying them – a scenario repeated in bars, restaurants and hotels across Spain and Portugal, two of Europe’s most visited tourist destinations.
Fifty-two-year-old Jose Carlos Sacó is able to keep his Tabanco de Jerez bar open in Madrid only on the weekend when there are no classes for students who need to earn extra money and can work that way. “We can’t open in a week because we don’t have hands, they are studying,” he said.
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In Madrid’s lively La Latina district, Angosta tavern owner Mariveni Rodríguez hired migrants for the high season. “We give an opportunity to migrants who wish to work because they don’t have family or institutional support,” he says.
Over 200,000 workers are missing
According to national industry associations, the Spanish hospitality industry is short of 200,000 workers, and Portuguese hotels need at least 15,000 people to meet growing demand.
Entrepreneurs are now trying to lure employees back. In Spain, according to official data, bars and restaurants have increased wages for workers by 60 percent year-on-year. However, tourism is still the sector in which employees are paid the least, around 1,150 euros (28,500 crowns) per month.
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In neighboring Portugal, wages for hospitality workers should rise by seven percent this year, according to a survey by the central bank and the statistics office. However, the average wage in the industry is 881 euros (21,800 crowns) per month, which is slightly more than the minimum wage, which is 705 euros (17,500 crowns).
Bazin added that if hotels are only 60 or 70 percent occupied, they can cope with understaffing. The critical moment occurs at full occupancy. “The problem is, I know we’re going to be 100 percent occupied from the beginning of July to the end of August, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to serve all these people,” he says.
According to him, the personnel in this industry were not paid enough and no one focused on their development. “Half of it is because we were blind, we didn’t pay attention to a lot of people, and we probably underestimated some people for too long. It’s a call to wake up and fix it,” he added.
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