These days, catering businesses are still searching en masse for extra helping hands to be able to serve everyone quickly. They certainly also look at flexi-Jobbers, because those flexible workers have become increasingly important for the cafés and restaurants in recent years. Almost a quarter of all employees (24.1%) in the Belgian hospitality industry are flexi-Jobbers this summer. That is 40% more than five years ago. The share of permanent employees (42.3%) remains the largest, although their share has fallen by 7.8% in the past five years.
Tom Dirix, expert at Acerta, emphasizes that the hospitality industry has more employees than five years ago: “Between July 2020 and July 2025, the number of jobs increased by around 27 %. Flexi-Jobs are now a structural part of the workforce of the Belgian hospitality industry,” said Dirix.
The classic trio-permanent employees, flexi-Jobbers and job students-remains crucial. Despite a slight decrease (-8.7 %), job students also see their share still around 33.6 % and that share still remains indispensable. “By accelerating the number of hours that is possible within a student contract – 650 hours a year since January 2025 – we expect that their share will not decrease in the coming period.”