The idea that a company builds homes to attract or retain labor was promoted In the nineteenth centurywhen industrial paternalism promoted creation of whole neighborhoods Linked to factories, mines or siderurgies. All followed the same logic: guaranteeing accommodation, basic services and even a lifestyle for a captive template, often in areas where there was no previous infrastructure. What changes now is the context. It is no longer about so much business paternalism or “utopian” projects of social order.
It is about responding to the real estate and demographic crisis.
Retain labor. Yes, in Europe, the housing problem has become a direct obstacle to economic activity. In Brittany, the company Fenêtréa decided act After verifying that each available rent attracted hundreds of applications and that many candidates rejected positions due to lack of ceiling.
Its director, Dominique Lamballe, launched the construction of the Horizon Brocelia Lot: 41 houses with garage, raised in Beignon, which can be bought or rented with priority for employees. The investment of more than seven million euros It seeks to guarantee the growth of a company that increases dozens of workers every year and prepares a new aluminum plant. In a rural region without adequate transport, the next accommodation becomes a survival condition for the company.
The Spanish mirror: tourism. Spain offers even more visible examples, especially in tourist areas where the boom in the holiday rental has reduced the long -term to minimum offer. Meliá has been forced To buy a hostel In Menorca and to acquire land in Ibiza, Mallorca and the Canary Islands to create homes for their staff, after they stay employees in hotel rooms to avoid casualties.
Spring Hotels has bought two unfinished buildings in Tenerife to transform them into 107 homes that It will lease staff and controls at subsidized prices, between 200 and 400 euros. Barceló and Gloria Thalasso They join To the search for solutions, aware that the lack of housing threatens the tourist model itself. The phenomenon reflects how, in the Balearic Islands or the Canary Islands, above all, hoteliers have gone from being pointed out as part of the problem to be forced to assume a role of residential promoters.
Hotel zone in southern Gran Canaria
The Irish case. In Ireland, the housing crisis has reached such magnitude that private companies have opted for Acquire block housing. Ryanair He bought 40 houses Next to the Dublin airport to allocate them to their crew, aware that without an insured roof there would be no way to recruit new staff.
The measure raised criticism for absorbing part of the low new work, but its CEO defended That without her there would be no template. Other companies such as Musgrave, Supermacs or Killarney Hotels too They offer dozens of floors For subsidized rent. The unions denounce that salaries, well below the escalation of rentals, make it impossible to attract employees if accommodation is not included. The lack of public investment after 2008 left a void that now tries to cover private companies, often As a last resort.
Central Europe and a road. The Czech Republic explores a different model, backed by the European Investment Bank and česká Spořitelna, which finances a 700 apartments project destined for public workers in the capital. With a budget of almost 190 million euros and energy efficiency criteria, seeks to guarantee affordable housing for teachers, nurses, police or officials who cannot assume market prices in a saturated city.
The project, inspired by previous initiatives of Austria, is the first of this type in the country and intends to serve as a prototype For all central Europewhere the lack of housing threatens the provision of basic services. At the same time, it reinforces the idea that the problem has transcended the social and already impacts the functioning of the State itself.
A shared symptom: living conditions work. Beyond specific cases, the phenomenon is already structural. In London, average rentals exceed 2,100 pounds And they have almost impossible for teachers, police and health personnel to live in the capital, which generates recruitment crisis in essential sectors. The disappearance of residential parks for officials He worsened the shortage.
In Amsterdam and Dublin, young graduates jobs decline Checking that their salaries do not cover the rent. Even in medium cities like Rennes or Vigo, the rise of tourist rental Reduce the offer For residents and strength to companies to improvise solutions. Housing, traditionally seen as a social problem, has become a central variable for economic competitiveness.
Riotinto Company workshop
The precedents of the 19th century. We said it at the beginning, the decision that companies build houses for their employees inevitably remembers the workers’ colonies of The industrial revolution. In Catalonia, on the shores of Llobregat and the TER, they flourished Textile colonies that included homes, schools, chapels and economics under the control of the pattern.
In Huelva, the Company River He lifted complete neighborhoods for his miners, such as Colonia Reina Victoria. Examples emerged in the United Kingdom As Port Sunlight from Lever Brothers or Bournville of the Cadbury, where the factory organized not only the work, but the social and cultural life of families. In France, The “Cité Ouvrière” De Mulhouse came to host thousands of workers. Those initiatives had a marked paternalistic dye: to ensure stable labor in isolated environments and, at the same time, discipline the working class under the umbrella of the company.
Utopian and ordoliberal projects. In transit to the twentieth century projects with more ambitious aspirations appeared, since The garden cities from Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom to the workers promoted by large industries in Germany, influenced by Ordoliberalism. One was sought hygienic urbanismwith luminous housing, cultural and sports services, for altarii workers, chemical plants or car factories.
Although presented as modernizers, they maintained the Structural dependence: The home was still linked to the company or the State. The difference with today is that New promotions They do not intend discipline to the population, but to respond to A real estate crisis that threatens employment. However, similarity is clear: housing is again the point of friction between economic prosperity and the daily life of workers.
A return to the past. If you want too, The examples In Brittany, SpainIreland or Prague They show how housing has become a strategic factor. What was previously industrial paternalism o Utopian urbanism, today is business pragmatism: guarantee roof to workers Simply so that the business can work.
Yesterday they were to mold stable and disciplined communities, today everything seems to aim to ensure templates in front of a overflowing real estate market everywhere. However, in both cases the same conclusion seems to beating: without housing there is no work, and without work there is no progress. Thus, the story is repeated again, but with a script adapted to the Dilemmas of the new century.
Image | Pexels, Wouter Hagens, US Army Corps of Engineers Europe District
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