Soria's hoteliers have a serious problem. And it is not a lack of customers, a drop in demand or an increase in costs. If there is a challenge that upsets the owners of bars, restaurants and cafes in the Castilian-Leonese city, it is hiring professional waiters. There are none. EITHER they can't find them. Just as they have difficulties in recruiting chefs, such as revealed in 2019 the local Chamber of Commerce. That is why months ago the sector association, Asohtur, launched a study to investigate the causes of its failure to attract talent.
Their conclusions are revealing.
Hunting for waiters. The shortage of professional waiters is not an exclusive problem from Soria. Nor is it new. The problem it dates back to several years ago, although it seems to have worsened after a pandemic that severely punished hospitality and commerce and encouraged many professionals to change sectors. A year ago, at the gates of a summer campaign that was promised to be historic, some estimates They already pointed to a deficit of around 40,000 professionals in Spain, including both waiters and cooks.
Soria is not an exception and months ago he decided to investigate the reason for this deficit. The question It was quite simple: Why is it so hard to find staff?
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Expected diagnosis. The result is a report as revealing as it is predictable. And it is because it puts the emphasis on two large slabs that weigh on the hospitality industry and make it difficult for it to gain attractiveness as a job option: low salaries and bad hours, which in turn complicates conciliation. The study, commissioned by the Soriana Group of Hospitality and Tourism (Asohtur) and prepared by The Talent Point Groupdoes not limit itself to identifying them: it delves into each obstacle.
Behind in profits. In the case of salaries, the study warns that the sector offers one of the lowest hourly salaries on the market. In fact, it only surpasses domestic service. Something similar happens with schedules, “which makes it one of the professions with the least conciliation, only ahead of fishing or international transport,” the authors specify of the study.
According to the Talent.com platform, the average salary of a waiter in Spain is around 19,000 euros per year (9.74 euros per hour), although the amount would vary depending on experience and there are professionals who have publicly denounced who earn much lower salaries. The last salary structure survey from the INE, with data from 2021 and which provides an official reference, points to hospitality employees as those who receive the lowest earnings: 14,600 euros.
Image issue. There are more factors at play that explain the waiter shortage, such as slid at the end of 2023 Herald-Diario de Soria. The report talks about employees “unmotivated” due to low salaries and hours, a loss of the feeling of belonging and vocation and even a “demonization” of the sector. The difficulties in signing experienced professionals, a problem that can go back at least until 2019when it was already identified by the Chamber of Commerce, have also been worsened in recent years.
The reason? During the health crisis there were professionals who left the sector, retrained and did not return to their old positions. In 2023 CCOO calculated that in a matter of four years, since the first quarter of 2019, the Spanish hospitality industry had lost 32,000 waiters and 3,000 cooks.
Without generational change. Another of the problems that plague the hospitality industry, according to the study, is precisely the lack of generational change in business. The sector would also be marked by another peculiarity: qualification.
How to collect Herald, in Soria, where the hospitality industry employs just over 3,300 people, 7% of the active population, and businesses have an average size of seven employees, all that is required is experience and desire. The biggest challenge there lies in finding cooks, waiters and kitchen assistants. The response time is usually two weeks and sometimes vacancies are not filled.
And how to solve it? It is the key part of the report, which raises an interesting reflection: clientele can be essential for the good performance of a business; but the other leg, just as crucial, is the template. Hence, the study advocates applying a series of measures: organization of schedules to facilitate conciliation, a cultural transformation that improves its image and a review of salary policies. Although from the consultancy they warned that improving salaries does not solve the problem automatically or immediately.
“In San Sebastián they launched a campaign advertising waiter positions with a salary 30% higher than what the agreement establishes. Despite this, they did not fill the vacancies. Money is the problem, not the solution,” recalls the firm.
Image | Hernán Piñera (Flickr)
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