Restaurants are going crazy due to staff shortages: come work (and live) here!
These days, you’re more likely to win the State Lottery and go on a date with Mark Rutte than find a skilled chef for the kitchen. There’s no staff to be found, and a warm summer with plenty of terrace hours has begun. A restaurant in Winterswijk came up with a creative solution: if you come and work for them, you can live for free in the apartment above the restaurant. With a balcony!
Good hospitality staff are hard to find. All the temporary workers who were still happily working on terraces, doing the dishes or running kitchens two years ago started doing something else when they couldn’t earn any money in a restaurant for a year. Fortunately, there was extra demand for parcel and meal delivery drivers during the coronavirus pandemic, so a second career was quickly launched, especially if you saw hospitality work as a side job. Almost a quarter of hospitality workers have disappeared from the industry, says Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN).
Beautiful Winterswijk
But even true professionals are becoming increasingly difficult to find. There was already a shortage of chefs before the lockdown, but now it has reached truly alarming proportions. That’s why Hans Tenbergen, owner of restaurant La Promenade, came up with an irresistible offer: new staff who work four days a week can live for free in the apartment above his business, all in beautiful Winterswijk.
Fewer tables
The staff shortage is obviously not limited to Winterswijk, but is a nationwide issue. KHN has launched a campaign to recruit people: ‘Working in hospitality, a party every day.’ The industry association is calling on everyone with a passion for hospitality to roll up their sleeves. Most hospitality businesses are searching diligently. No staff? Then they stay closed for an extra day or put out fewer tables on the terrace. Such a shame, because after a year without revenue, they naturally want to make up for lost ground.
Higher salaries
Maybe it’s time to improve working conditions for hospitality staff? Limited supply, high demand: in economic terms, that means a price increase. Indeed, hospitality salaries have risen by an average of 5 percent, according to recent research by ABN AMRO, but that’s still not much.
Moreover, new employees are put off by zero-hours contracts, long working days during busy periods and working weeks of sixty to eighty hours in peak season. The icing on the applesauce: a lukewarm croquette as staff food, or toasties yet again. Add it all up and you see little appreciation for good hospitality employees.
Responses
The entrepreneur in Winterswijk is looking for a couple to come and work, describing it as ‘a paid holiday in the Achterhoek.’ Four days of work and three days off, a free apartment with a balcony, and negotiable working hours. The vacancy is temporary; he is talking about three months. A week after posting his call, things still haven’t exactly been inundated with responses, he told regional newspaper De Gelderlander. ‘Zero responses, quite strange.’
Also read:
- Special hospitality concept: Keunenhuis in Winterswijk
- The cheapest Michelin-starred restaurants
- Polish your CV: Noma is looking for staff
Source: Misset Horeca
