The nights start 'al fresco', dinners with friends and family -now that the Covid seems like a bad dream- but the bars and restaurants are filled with diners who, they say, are difficult to attend to. Especially since there is a lack of staff to work at dinners. “After the pandemic there are many people who do not want to work at night. And we are in a city full of tourism, if we let this moment pass…, reflects Begoña Rodrigo.
Chef at La Salita, one of the Michelin stars in Valencia, Rodrigo confirms what businessmen in the hospitality sector have been explaining for months, but she also suffers from it when her conditions are extraordinary -because they are anomalous, above all- with respect to what usually occurs in the sector.
Before Christmas, it changed its hours and although it had to back down due to the many casualties due to the virus, since January 2022 it has maintained four days a week for its 32 workers, with three on payroll.
“In total, eight services are made. Although it is true that there are people who work from Wednesday to Sunday, in between they deliver the service that is not their turn”, details the cook, with La Salita, L'hort Al Nú and La Coctelería as hotel proposals.
The also businesswoman knows that her position is exceptional and that not all hospitality businesses can afford to offer these conditions, but “it could also not. The problem is that, even with good conditions, you either find people with a vocation or there aren't. There is a lack of personnel who were never professional and who suddenly now have other options, ”she points out.
Which? Many returned to construction, from which they were expelled in the previous crisis; Others prefer to work in messaging - on the rise due to ecommerce - because at eight o'clock at night they are, yes or yes, at home. They are just two examples.
However, vacancies continue to grow. This week, more than 3,000 in the Valencian Community. Víctor Tatay, regional director of Adecco Levante, explains that almost anyone who walks through the door of an employment office today could find a job. “Let's see, with nuances. There are profiles that we cannot help, but any industrial profile, with a minimum level of skills and their own vehicle, today has a job opportunity”, he points out.
His company dives daily into the vacancies that are advertised on portals, companies and social networks such as LinkedIn and confirms, figures in hand, that there is a spectacular increase in the Valencian Community. A growth of around 53% between April 2021 and the latter. Sales and hospitality are the sectors where more professionals are sought. In fact, in April, 144,314 contracts were signed and 70% were in the service sector, the sector with the most workers in the Valencian economy.
But this situation of lack of workers in restaurants and hotels does not occur only in the Valencian Community, it is generalized throughout the State. Luis Martí, from ASHOTUR and president of CEV Castellón, remembers it, a Valencian province with towns such as Benicàssim or Peñíscola where these days they are looking for floor waiters, cleaners or dependents to work in a campaign that is already starting. “It is being very difficult, it is true. We lack people in the kitchen, waiters, assistants… there are many difficulties to fill these positions”, he acknowledges. Candidates want to take Sundays off, for example, but not all businesses can satisfy them.
On the other hand, CCOO-PV denounces that there are workers who call the union to tell them that many of the current offers require shifts from Monday to Sunday. “The arguments they give them is that they rest in winter, which is now the summer campaign. But it is that you cannot work from Monday to Sunday, there must be two consecutive days of rest by agreement and that is not fulfilled in the majority of the sector, ”explains Cristina García, from the Federation of CCOO-PV Services.
García does not avoid using the word “precariousness” to describe what is happening. "The recurrent story that there are no professionals is widely used by the hotel management, but it responds to a reality, which is the precariousness of the sector," he adds. He recalls that they are in negotiations to renew the agreement for the province of Valencia and gives as an example the agreement they reached a week ago in the province of Alicante, with a 4.5% salary revision from January 1, 2022.
For their part, business sources add that the hotel industry comes from numerous closures and that it cannot do much more. It is expected that 2022 will be the summer of recovery, although Luis Martí says that it will be "the summer of activation because to recover we thought we would need a year and it will end up being two," he points out.
Restaurants, he notes, have long been closed, and ICO loans weigh down their accounts. But of course, when we all celebrate, it is when there is more work in bars and restaurants. And that is also the problem. “In May we are experiencing the casuistry of every year, but this year it is more aggravated by the situation of the pandemic: that critical mass of workers who entered and left has disappeared because they have gone to safer sectors where they can be even without working. weekends and nights”, explains Manuel Espinar, president of the Business Confederation of Hospitality and Tourism of the Valencian Community.
Espinar puts the concept of "social revolution" on the table to explain how Covid-19 has transformed the way of approaching conciliation, being aware of the need to spend more time with the family, with better schedules...
Can dinner be given at eight at night? "We start serving foreigners at half past seven, but the national public reserves at ten. That's why I think society also has to be psyched up because we, what do we have to do? Don't we give dinner?" , Add.
A study prepared by the Ivie for the Valencian Observatory of Decent Work said that in the third quarter of 2020 -in a pandemic- 17.2% of total employment in the Valencian hospitality industry corresponded to unwanted part-time jobs.
The latest data referring to the third quarter of 2020 also show that in the Valencian case, 22.4% would like to increase their hours, a more frequent preference than the national average for the hotel industry (18.3%), the Community as a whole Valencian (13.5%) or the total of Spain (10.9%).
The hotel industry is an essential source of employment opportunities for women, young people, foreigners and people with basic training, points out the Ivie, but professionals in the sector want it to also be a vocation because, as Espinar concludes, "there are many transporters of dishes , but now there are very few people who make you feel comfortable in a restaurant”.
