We talked the day he was on vacation. It was the first thing he received in two weeks. “In high season, forget about weekends. That’s what they told us,” she said. Cornflowers*. The 23-year-old left her stable job in a town on the Greek mainland for a few months and traveled to Crete to “seasonally” work in a hotel to save some money. The tourist flow has not yet peaked, and she is very close to regretting her choice. The main reason, he says, staff shortageleading to multiple people taking on a disproportionate workload. “There are not enough workers, and there are many vacancies. To take a vacation, my colleague worked alone on the beach, also covering our platform and restaurant. One person just for ordering and serving,” he said.

The daily life of Vasiliki is typical of many hotels, not only in Crete, but also in most tourist destinations throughout Greece, where a lack of human resources has caused serious problems for employees and businesses. According to a study by the Institute of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises, in 2022, more than one in five hotel spaces were not filled. This year, according to experts in this field, the problem is expected to worsen.

Even before June arrived, eyes turned to the implications of this problem when they saw the light. complaints from Crete. Workers have accused certain hotels of asking them to sign agreements that include points worth several thousand euros in case they quit or report their wages to a colleague.

Overtime and psychological pressure

“They think they will keep employees from being fired by forcing workers to do something illegal,” commented in a conversation with “K” President of the Union of Cooks and Confectioners of the Prefecture of Heraklion and General Secretary of the Heraklion Labor Center Nektarios Mousakis. According to him, wages have improved in recent years, but working conditions have deteriorated due to a shortage of personnel. “Each employee takes on the work of two or three people to fill vacancies. Pressure, both physical and psychological, workplace bullying and verbal abuse alienate young workers and force older workers to leave at the earliest opportunity.”

Mr Moussakis claims that other reasons such as the shortening of the tourist season, measures taken during the crisis such as the right of seasonal workers to receive unemployment benefits for only three months have contributed to the flight of many workers, and finally the corona virus. .

Every year and worse

Vasiliki mentioned that the agreement she made was for eight to ten hours, and they are already trying to circumvent it. “When he has a job and no people, you can’t just drop everything and leave,” he said.

OUR Thassos** has been a chef for 34 years. “This year is three times worse than in previous years. We are forced to work 12-14 hours a day because so many employees have quit. Of the chefs we worked with last year, five went abroadin the Netherlands and Germany,” he said. In fact, he described that the situation has reached such a bad point that hotels are now competing with each other. they try to “steal” workers one from the other, offering the best earnings. Having reached almost 50 years of age, he himself is more interested in working conditions and stability than salary. “Overtime is paid, but if you don’t take the day off, you won’t see the light of day,” he said.

“Rain” of complaints

Labor rights violations result in a bunch of complaints coming to her office. Maria Perisinaki, Head of the Labor Inspectorate of Heraklion, Crete. “There are too many complaints, and most of them concern over time V unpaid holidays“, – he noted, adding that some workers also complain bad behaviorwhile young women often minorsthey complain sexual harassment.

Speaking to K, Ms. Perisinaki notes that the service’s staff of only five Heraklion Prefectural Auditors is insufficient to carry out the audits and that three times as many staff are required to handle such a volume of complaints. within a specified period of time to be investigated.

Juveniles are recruited to fill in the gaps

What the head of the Labor Inspectorate especially notes during this period is the large number of minors over 15 years old who come to the service to issue work books in order to be able to work in hotels. As he points out, there are many restrictions on the work of minors and, in fact, they are allowed to work mainly as waiters, barmaids and administrators. She herself believes that over 1500 booklets for minors will be produced by the end of the seasonsince tourism enterprises cannot find workers in the prefecture.

OUR President of the Union of Hoteliers of Heraklion Nikos Chalkiadakis, confirms this trend by stating that in his own hotel, the children of many employees, mostly between 16 and 18 years old, work for a quarter, helping in the service.

“Every day they leave”

According to him, the shortage of personnel for Crete is approx. 2500 seatsnumber is equivalent to 10% needs. “We don’t know why they don’t come back. This worries us very much,” Mr. Halkiadakis noted, noting that time violations occur when shifts do not “come out.” with the exodus of workers during the tourist season.”We get to the point where we can’t comment, and they leave.. Demand is high, so finding a job is easy. They leave every day,” he said. However, when asked about employee complaints about provisions allegedly put in place by hotels to curb staff attrition, he replied that such behavior is reprehensible and they certainly don’t help the situation.

As he stated, hoteliers looking for foreign workershoping that the state will make all the necessary procedures to be able to hire people from other countries and fill in the gaps.

*,** Pseudonyms were used to protect the identity of employees. Their data is at the disposal of “K”.