Hotel Crisis: Desperate to Hire People
When hotel managers have to step in as chefs, you know that not everything is as it should be.
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This is a comment. The comment expresses the writer’s attitude
A hotel director in a chef’s coat
is of course a fun picture of the great demand post-corona.
This is what we have missed. That hotels and restaurants and canteens that were abandoned due to the pandemic, finally get plenty to do. That they make money and make up for lost time.
There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? But that’s it. “You can definitely say it’s a crisis. We are seriously concerned “, says one in the hotel and restaurant industry with his finger on the pulse.
Vacuum cleaner for workers
The concern is that you do not make enough money, if you do not get sold as much as you need to sell.
Not because people do not want to eat steak in a restaurant, or stay overnight in a hotel. But because there are not enough people at work to fry the steak and make the beds.
These are service industries. The services are performed by people. Many of the people are gone.
This means that companies have to operate for half a machine. When they really have to operate at double speed after 563 days with restrictions and horror numbers.
8 out of 10 missing people
Absolutely fresh statistics for the 3rd quarter from NHO shows that as many as eight out of ten companies within accommodation and catering activities answer that lack of access to qualified labor is a major challenge.
No other industries have similarly high numbers.
Although almost all industries struggle to a greater or lesser degree. The second worst is in the construction industry. In the cultural sector, which has been hit hard by restrictions, one in three experience it as a “big challenge” that they do not get enough people.
What do the hotel and catering industry and the construction industry have in common? Labor immigrants from Europe.
A Norwegian problem One may ask why Norway has become dependent on migrant workers from the EEA.
The answer is threefold and is about persistent structural challenges in Norwegian working life. The biggest problem is that we lack skilled workers .
Most Norwegians study for other, better paid, less physically demanding occupations, than those that require vocational education or vocational school.
There is simply a mismatch between the competence of the workforce and the competence that employers are screaming for.
Secondly, there is little willingness to move. In addition, there is the uncertainty of seasonal work.
This is what explains why a hotel director has to put on the chef’s coat somewhere in Norway, while hundreds of Norwegian chefs are unemployed elsewhere in the country.
Gone for good?
Norwegians have established lives with families and networks. They do not move after jobs, or based on seasons. And at least not when there are other jobs available.
Foreigners move to where their jobs are.
That is why they have become so important to Norway. And for the industry.
Even before the pandemic, these were tight, not only in Norway, but over large parts of Europe. It affected profitability. The industries tried to keep their foreign workers.
Then came the corona, a closed Norway and closed borders. The foreigners went home. Employees were laid off.
When hotel operations picked up again in the summer of 2021, much had changed. Many had taken jobs in other countries. Attempts were made to call in Norwegian workers, but they were also gone.
No one is yet sure where they have gone, but there are theories. Several of them were tired, they retrained and are out for good. Others, both permanent residents and visiting workers, took jobs in, among other things, the grocery and retail trade. Who has had adventurous growth during the pandemic .
A membership survey from NHO tourism conducted in mid-August showed that half of the hotels and restaurants that depended on foreign labor had not been able to replace their seasonal workers.
This was clearly noticed on the bottom line. Half answered that turnover was reduced , and 1 in 5 had to stay closed for one or more days this summer.
The pandemic has undoubtedly exacerbated and highlighted the weaknesses in Norwegian working life.
We need mobile foreigners to keep companies alive, where Norwegians have permanent jobs. And we need to train more skilled workers.
Is the answer to increase wages? In any case, it is the strongest tool for attracting labor. And it is now taken into use at some hotels .
It says something about desperation.
For the hotel and catering industry, one of the industries is with
the lowest operating margins
. This means that there is little left over when all the bills have been paid. The salary of employees is one of the largest costs. On average, 40 percent of all costs. An increase in wages can therefore lead to an increase in prices.
Are Norwegians willing to pay more for the steak and the hotel room?
What is happening now may nevertheless be a necessary correction for the industry. Who are accused of social dumping. Although in 2018 the minimum wage was introduced , among other things so that foreign workers would not earn worse than Norwegian workers.
Nevertheless, unions claim that the rules are circumvented by foreigners being offered extra help contracts, seasonal contracts and taken in through staffing agencies.
No quick fixes
There are no easy solutions to problems that have existed for decades. What is happening now in the hotel industry is an expression of that.
The question is how Norway will have a more robust working life in the wake of the pandemic.
The turning point we are now in may be the start of a necessary change. A time used for retraining, skills development and good financial framework conditions.
Tourism is part of the solution. It employs 90,000, is one of our largest export products and a growing industry.
It’s about more than the steak. It is about the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people.
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