Nuremberg/Cologne (dpa) – According to a new study, the corona crisis has mainly driven workers from the hospitality industry to retail. In 2020 alone, 216,000 employees nationwide turned their backs on the catering industry, according to the study by the Institute of German Economics (IW), which is available to the German Press Agency. Almost 35,000 of them have found a new job in sales, where the discounters Aldi and Lidl, for example, offer starting wages of at least 14 euros.
Around 27,000 people have switched from the catering trade to the transport and logistics industry, including as drivers for parcel services. About the same number would have hired in the field of corporate management, for example as secretaries. According to the study, it is above all not only mini-jobbers who left the catering trade. According to the study, the departures from June 2020 to June 2021 included almost 60,000 employees subject to social security contributions – a decrease of 10.3 percent.
“In no other professional area is the decline so strong, neither in absolute terms nor in percentage terms,” analyze the authors of the study, Anika Jansen and Paula Risius.
The Bavarian Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga) is therefore calling for more targeted immigration to Germany to be made possible. For example, applicants from the Western Balkan countries would have to be admitted to work in Germany more quickly. Visas for applicants from non-EU countries would have to be dealt with more quickly overall, demanded Dehoga Managing Director Thomas Geppert. “I don’t think it will be possible to fill the gap within Germany.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220711-99-978094/2
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