How the shortage of workers in tourism reached the German media

By Vicky Kourlimbini

The lack of staff in tourism had become apparent as early as March, when the hotel units started planning for this year’s tourist season. Tourist organizations had attributed the difficulty of staffing the places in the pandemic and in particular to the change of orientation of the employees.

This was followed by a twitter post by Andreas Andreadis, CEO of the hotel chain Sani / Ikos Group and former president of the Association of Greek Tourist Enterprises, who said that more than fifty thousand vacancies in tourism have been left vacant.

“Indeed, there is a huge shortage of labor supply with wages significantly above industry contracts. The biggest problems are found in food (kitchen & service) with more than 50,000 vacancies. Solutions are needed now, quality tourism is in danger,” he said.

The issue reached the German media with a report by the German news agency dpa in the Welt “Many customers, few employees” to report that the summer season is expected to be very good, but a “cloud obscures the bright prospects. According to the relevant tourist association “This year, the approximately 50,000 jobs could not be filled at the beginning of the season. But why is the tourism sector not attractive, when there are 600,000 unemployed in Greece?”

According to the article, “the money earned in the summer is impossible to reach even in the winter. Service staff, for example, earn about 1000 euros a month. But they work seven days a week, up to twelve hours a day during the season. “. To these are added the expensive rents in the tourist areas eg in Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Crete for the employees, “500 euros for minimum square meters”.

For their part, hoteliers point out that emigration abroad, job changes due to the pandemic and losses in the tourism industry (for example to construction and delivery), but also the various benefits during Covid exacerbated the shortages. All this at a time when tourism is trying to find the dynamics of the records it had in 2019, while the number of arrivals is expected to move to pre-pandemic levels, when we had 30 million visitors from abroad.

One in five places uncovered

At the peak of the summer season of 2021, 53,249 jobs were not filled out of the 244,124 jobs provided according to the organization chart in hotels. That is, the shortage rate is 22% or more than 1 in 5 positions were not filled. The percentage is similar in all hotel departments and ranges from 21% to 24%.

According to a study by INSETE, on “Employment and labor shortages in Greek hotels at the peak of the summer season 2021” the shortage of staff at the peak of the season existed in previous years, especially in many islands and remote areas, but greatly exacerbated due to the pandemic. The overall treatment, as well as the promotion of employment opportunities in the sector, are top priority issues for Greek tourism, in order to maintain a high level of service and hospitality, perhaps its strongest point of superiority over the competition.

50% of the total vacancies, almost 26,500 vacancies, correspond to the specialties Waitress, Receptionist, Waiter, Waiter, Lantzeris, Barista and Technical Support / Maintenance.