It’s about working conditions and safety, about recognition – and ultimately also about money. During the corona pandemic, many people were forced to change jobs – or looked for a new job voluntarily. According to a new study by the German Economic Institute (IW), the loser is clearly the hospitality industry. Hotels and restaurants lost around 216,000 employees in 2020 alone, as the authors of the study write, citing figures from the Federal Employment Agency.
The retail trade has proven to be a catchment area for employees who migrated in the corona pandemic, especially from the hospitality industry. Almost 35,000 of the employees who left the catering trade found a new job in sales, for example as cashiers. What was initially intended as a temporary solution in many cases has established itself as a permanent option in many cases – possibly because of more family-friendly working hours, among other things.
The discounters Aldi and Lidl also fueled the trend with lucrative offers. For months they have been advertising offers with starting wages of at least 14 euros – well above the future minimum wage of 12 euros and garnished with the prospect of promotion opportunities, at least for younger people.
According to the study, which is available to the German Press Agency, around 27,000 people have switched from gastronomy to the transport and logistics industry, for example as drivers for parcel services. About the same number would have hired in the field of corporate management, for example as secretaries. According to the study, however, it is not just mini-jobbers who are leaving the catering industry. According to the study, the departures from June 2020 to June 2021 included almost 60,000 employees subject to social security contributions – a decrease of 10.3 percent.
“In no other professional area is the decline so strong, neither in absolute terms nor in percentage terms,” analyze the authors, Anika Jansen and Paula Risius, about the catering trade. That’s where it’s most noticeable. Even flagship businesses have to close or take additional days off, says Thomas Geppert, Managing Director of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association in Bavaria. Hotels could no longer fully utilize their rooms due to a lack of staff.
Geppert calculates that gastronomy needs six times more staff than retail, for example, to achieve the same turnover. It is not surprising that such a personnel-intensive industry is particularly suffering during the pandemic. Especially since the many mini-jobbers during the lockdown were not compensated by short-time work and were therefore forced to look for something new. In the case of permanent employees, the departure of 8.5 percent in Bavaria is less dramatic.
It is clear to Geppert that the industry still has a lot to do to retain its staff. “We need more flexible working time models,” he says. But politics and administration could also help. For example, with easier visa access for foreigners from non-EU countries, such as from the Western Balkans. “I don’t think it will be possible to fill the gap within Germany.” A new collective bargaining agreement provides for “dramatic wage increases”. Probably also because the tip share of earnings is dwindling, among other things due to increasing card payments.
Another industry also wants to solve its personnel problem through payment – the airports. At the airport in Nuremberg, for example, there is a new company collective agreement, as a spokesman says. With a starting wage of 12.50 euros, employees in the lowest group with night and holiday bonuses would quickly reach an average hourly wage of 14 to 16 euros. (dpa)