Seasonality and frequent adversity working conditions are the main barriers to employment in Greek hotels. But they are not the only ones: premium policies and undeclared work, combined with major changes in the mentality of workers, especially the younger generation, are also contributing to a large labor shortage in tourism.

Of course, the level of wages is also a problem. The problem is so serious that a regulation was passed two weeks ago allowing the importation of workers from abroad to cover large gaps expected again this year. And this is in a country where unemployment remains at 10%. Now a new study shows that the scale of the problem is larger than originally thought.

• Difficult working conditions (manual tension).

• Unsuitable housing.

• Frequent shift and night shifts.

• Dual and triple responsibilities, seasonality (hard work in July and August and at least six months on unemployment benefits).

• A reward policy that motivates menial work.

• Uncompetitive salary levels, lack of organized business structures in a large number of lower category hotels.

• Changes in the mindset of young workers.

• Loss of confidence in the reliability of the hotel due to the pandemic.

• Competition from other industries such as construction and retail.

Very well organized tourist areas and five star hotels have less disadvantages.

• Increasing demand from abroad for holidays in Greece.

60,000 shortage

It is estimated that there were 60,225 vacancies at the national level during the height of the 2022 summer season, out of 262,981 jobs provided by the hotel’s organizational structure. That is, the deficit rate was 23%, as a result of which more than 1 out of 5 positions remained vacant. The pass rate was the same in almost all departments and ranged from 21% to 24%.

These figures are from his updated study. Institute of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (INSETE) on the topic: “Employment and labor shortage in Greek hotels in the height of the summer season 2022”. The study was prepared using a primary study conducted by the Institute for Tourism Research and Forecasting (ITEP) of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels (FEE) in FIEE member hotels.

However, a closer look shows that this phenomenon is much more pronounced in hotels of a lower category. It also shows that five-star hotels and the geographic regions of Attica and the South Aegean show less disadvantages. “The more organized the work environment and the more developed the region for tourism, the smaller the deficit,” features in “K” one of the main participants in the study.

“Working in hotels, and especially in majors, is difficult and with irregular working hours, while other industries offer higher wages and more predictable daily earnings. I would tell you that we are now competing with the construction site for attracting workers and now we are losing,” he explains. talking to “K” head of the legendary Athens hotel chain. “We don’t have a personnel problem, but we have a 12-month job, and besides, I can tell you that if before we had queues of workers who asked us for work, now these queues simply don’t exist,” he said. adds.

The problem of seasonality is mentioned by both employees and employers as serious. “The choice between three months of very hard work in poor working conditions in the summer and receiving benefits in the winter versus a predictable stable job in other industries, such as retail or even courier services, is simple and comes at the expense of tourism. ”, explains another hotelier.

Higher wages

It is clear to many that higher wages must now be paid to convince workers to return to tourism. Return, because practically the problem was created during the pandemic. “Just as the industry experienced a massive influx of workers from 2013 to 2019, we have seen the opposite trend since 2020,” says the president of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises. Giannis Retsos. Simply put, the pandemic has shaken the labor market’s confidence in tourism. “The labor market has changed radically since the pandemic, but at the same time there have been broader new trends, such as a change in mentality among young workers who are looking for higher pay, better working conditions and visible development prospects,” he explains. “Of course, this disruption of employment is not a Greek problem, but an international one. Hoteliers and restaurateurs face the same problems in the south of France, in Spain or Italy,” he adds. However, he singles out the issues of working conditions and seasonality as two main reasons. Adding to this environment is an increased demand for hotel services in Greece as the country climbs higher and higher on the list of priority destinations on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years. And that means demand for more expensive services that require more hands.

distortion

On the issue of benefits and unsafe and “black” work, Market sources explain “K” that there are distortions that have intensified during the pandemic, when massive emergency benefits were provided to tourism workers. However, as of mid-2022, this extraordinary bonus policy has ceased, but not the usual bonus policy. Tourism and catering workers receive seasonal allowance provided that they have worked in the calendar year preceding the payment of the allowance, not less than 75 daily earnings and not more than 50 daily earnings in the period from October 1 to December 31 of the calendar year. prior to payment. Thus, as far as employees are concerned, it is beneficial for them to be insured for the number of days required to receive seasonal benefits, and to work uninsured the rest of the time. The same practice naturally benefits those businesses and employers that rely on undeclared work and tax evasion to survive. But this practice is detrimental to consistent, legitimate, and organized businesses that have long seasons and are unwilling or unable to pay black money.

One proposal to address this issue is to cut taxes and non-wage expenses for seasonal workers while eliminating benefits to keep workers’ net wages higher to reduce incentives for insecure employment.

Over 7,000 maids are missing

According to the study and relative to the corresponding figures for the peak summer season of 2021, there was an increase in jobs last year, while the level of deficit remained the same. Specialties maid, waiter, porter, busboy, porter, barista and technical support they account for a total of 52% of all vacancies in the organizational structure, 54% of all filled vacancies and 46% of all unfilled vacancies. In numerical terms, the largest shortage occurred among waitresses (7,360 vacancies or 12% of all missing and 18% of all positions provided for by staffing tables in this specialty), waiters (5,164 or 9% of missing and 22% of corresponding positions). of projected vacancies), bus assistants (3,883 or 6% of the deficit and 21% of projected vacancies) and receptionists (3,460 or 6% of the deficit and 17% of projected vacancies). This is followed by barista/barmaid-barmaid (2729 or 5% and 24% respectively), bartenders (2866 or 5% and 24% respectively) and technical support (2054 or 3% and 21% respectively).

Circumvention of labor laws and industry contracts

According to the President of the Panhellenic Federation of Food and Tourism Workers Giorgos Khotsoglu, a vital role The corona virus pandemic has played a role in the emergence of vacancies in this sector, since the problem of the magnitude presented today has arisen immediately after the resumption of tourism in our country. What industry workers don’t accept is that there were no major problems in the all-time record year, 2019, and suddenly we’re in 2022 with 61,000 job openings, and 2023 is estimated to have even more. The problem escalated, Mr Hotzoglu said, because many hotel workers could not stand the process of suspending contracts and receiving a €543 benefit that food and tourism workers received not every month, but every 45 and 50 days. Therefore, they decided to leave the industry, looking for work in other sectors of the Greek economy, not related to their subject, where there was a 12-month employment with better pay and working conditions.

OUR second the reason was the circumvention of labor laws and Sectoral collective labor agreementsbecause as soon as the industry reopened, employers began frequent delinquencies.

A new sectoral collective labor agreement in the field of tourism has been signed since November 2022, and the procedure has not yet been determined in the Supreme Labor Council, which should be declared universally binding and apply to all enterprises in the industry. This results in even major five-star hotels failing to implement a 5.5% increase by 2023 by paying their workers the minimum wage, citing the fact that they are not members of the employers’ organization that signed the contract.

Control mechanisms are missing or even understaffed, with the result that laws and treaties are not enforced. For example, Mykonos, Santorini and Paros do not have a labor inspectorate. The employee will have to travel to Syros to file a complaint. And accordingly, to visit the three largest tourist destinations, you need to walk one step from Syros.

AND third is the abandonment of seasonal workers during the winter months, as unemployment benefits are now only available for three of the five months that were in effect during the premorandum period. So, for example, workers employed in Northern Greece, where the tourist season lasts less than a month than on the large islands, are subsidized by the state from October to December and remain without income until May next year, after which they will return to work. The same thing happens to the workers of Southern Greece with a difference of one month (they are fired in October and subsidized until January).

Every year, new specialists constantly emerge from the existing public and private IECs. But, unfortunately, in practice, workers are the worst at perceiving the discrepancy between what they are taught in school and what is happening in reality. There are also retraining programs for uneducated workers. However, the tourism ministry itself, according to Mr. Hotsoglu, undermines these programs, as courses, instead of starting in October and ending before the start of the tourist season, start in the last two years at the end of February. as a result, members leave early to work.