“And if I quit?” It is one of the most frequent questions among waiters that shows the problem that the hotel industry suffers with the lack of personnel, a challenge facing the sector —which estimates the number of workers it needs at 100,000—, and the employees, who demand more dignified conditions .
For the hotel industry, the ball that represents the problem of lack of employment seems to be in the workers’ court, who are blamed for the fact that, due to the availability of other more attractive and less laborious jobs such as logistics, they have abandoned the Option to work in the hospitality industry.
On the other hand, for many employees, this same ball falls on the side of the sector itself, which they reproach for offering poor working conditions, which do not take into account work-life balance and which are not reflected in wages that, in the opinion of the workers, they are very low.
Between the complaints on one side and the reproaches on the other, it is difficult for the ball to maintain a balance during the low season, when there is less influx of both tourists and diners in general, but with the arrival of summer stability falters and becomes more evident year by year.
“About 100,000 workers are missing,” the president of the Hospitality Association of Spain, José Luis Yzuel, stressed in statements to EFE, for whom the situation is now becoming more complicated with the arrival of events such as fairs and spring festivals. “Our conditions are very poor,” the waiter Jesús Soriano, also known on social networks as Soy Camarero, and who has worked in the sector for 18 years behind him, reproaches the sector.
Soriano explains that, if a couple of years ago the sector talked about the fact that there were no staff because they preferred to “collect State aid”, the repeated mantra now is that “there are no qualified personnel”, something that on the part of the waiters flatly reject.
And he points out that the solution is simply to “stick to the agreement”, comply with schedules that facilitate work-life balance and that allow “having a social life”, points out Jesús Soriano. To alleviate this problem, one of the solutions that businessmen are considering is to bring “manpower” from other countries such as Morocco, as was proposed not without controversy weeks ago from Cádiz; They defend the existence of very good hospitality schools.
All this is happening in the eyes of a sector that is witnessing its own recovery after the pandemic with an influx of diners, not only has it recovered, but it has also improved the expectations they had.
The data handled by Hospitality of Spain estimate around 5% and 10% the growth in billing in bars and restaurants for the next May Bridge, a percentage that was also reached for Easter, and that is expected to be maintained during the pre-summer season.
It is precisely these dates, marked by fairs in some cities and national and regional festivities, during which the hiring problem becomes most latent for the sector. For Yzuel, the “surgical” templates with which they operate in bars and restaurants exacerbate the situation.
For example, in Seville, during the first quarter of 2023 the number of new contracts in the sector has increased by 6% compared to the same period last year, but it is a figure that increases in April with the succession of Easter and the Fair of April, as reported by the Association of Hoteliers of Seville and Province.
For many waiters, one of the main problems in the sector lies in the lack of work-life balance. Juan (fictitious name, since he prefers to remain anonymous) is a 27-year-old from Seville who has been working as a waiter since he was 18, when he entered university, and he recognizes this situation. During that time he has combined his studies with the job of “waiter assistant” the position that, according to his contract, he would be performing but that, in reality, does not resemble the load of responsibility he held: that of dry waiter
“I can’t, I work”, is one of the phrases that Juan has repeated the most during his career, a phrase that has taken its toll on him, he regrets, on a sentimental level, since it has affected his social life with family, friends and even couple. Before leaving work, he was in charge of closing the bar at three in the morning and reopening it at eleven, for breakfast, all charging 5.5 euros per hour.
Rubén, a 25-year-old boy from Madrid (not his real name, as he also prefers to remain anonymous) has been working as a waiter for seven years, the last two of them as a manager in a high-end restaurant. From this position, Rubén is responsible for managing the schedules of the rest of the waiters, a point that he recognizes as a problem in the hospitality industry due to the “bad hours” with which they work, with split shifts and hardly any breaks.
For both of them, the job of a waiter is a sacrificial trade that on many occasions is not compensated by salary or working conditions, and which makes the question “What if I quit?” is always on the menu of the day.
