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Serving customers in a bar in Madrid. Esther Vázquez
Spain's hospitality industry continues to be plagued by shortage of qualified staff
Employment

Spain's hospitality industry continues to be plagued by shortage of qualified staff

Tourism demand is soaring in the country, but the sector is finding it difficult to recruit more workers. One solution lies in encouraging the arrival of trained people from other countries, such as Chile, Peru or Morocco said one employers' association

Edurne Martínez / Lucía Palacios

Madrid

Tuesday, 26 December 2023, 13:22

Spain's shortage of qualified workers is putting the hospitality and catering industry in dire straits, according to latest figures.

Despite repeated assurances from the government that the country is not suffering from a labour shortage, INE national statistics institute data recently revealed there are just under 160,000 unfilled positions. Last week it recorded the new record number of vacancies in Spain in the second quarter of 2023 as 155,797. The figure is more than double the number just six years ago.

However, employers are questioning the figures as only 5% of the vacancies are in the hospitality and catering industry and another 4% in construction, two of the most affected sectors by the lack of skilled workers. Meanwhile, public administration accounts for 35% of the total number of workers lacking in Spain.

'Juggling act'

Recently, the Spanish population has also been growing due to a wave of migrant arrivals. In 2022, some 1.3 million people entered the country from abroad, 42% more than in 2021, according to INE data. "The biggest challenge for the economy in the coming years is demographic, it will be very difficult to find qualified workers, especially in the tourism sector," said Ignacio de la Torre, chief economist at Arcano Partners.

Meanwhile, Hostelería de España president José Luis Yzuel said the biggest obstacle to growth in the service sector is finding trained people to join the workforce. "This is the biggest achilles' heel of tourism and the hospitality and catering industry," he said.

The solution lies in encouraging the arrival of trained people from other countries, such as Chile, Peru or Morocco, he added. "There are professionals trained in good hotel and catering schools who would be delighted to come to work in Spain, we have to take advantage of this," Yzuel said.

Ramón Estalella, secretary general of the Confederation of Hoteliers (Cehat), said: "We have to stop giving incentives to those who do not want to work". In other countries suffering from a labour shortage, such as Japan and the United States, the cleaning service is cut from daily to every two or three days, to adapt to surging demand and a lack of workers, he added.

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