Greece has a huge challenge ahead if he wants his tourism sector to continue growing. And it has nothing to do with transport or promotion. Your problem is much more basic: employment. Although the sector moves thousands of millions of euros, it has A prominent weight In the national GDP and the country has started the year with A considerable increase Visitors, Greek hotels and restaurants see how the high season is approaching with squalid templates. The sector speaks of 80,000 vacanciesa great work emptiness that It has worsened over the years.
The question is … How to combine the increase of tourists with the shortage of personnel? And above all, is Greece the spearhead that advances what can happen in Other countries?
A growing sector. With the increasingly distant memory of COVID-19 and the pandemic break, things paint well in the Greek tourism sector. Last year he received almost 36 million of foreign visitors, 3.2 million more than in 2023. The fact marks a historical maximum that resulted in 21.7 billion euros, according to The Government.
The forecasts for this year are not bad, something important if you take into account The considerable weight of tourism In the Greek economy. The National Bank estimates that it will grow above 5% with an increasingly unstacted offer. For now, the sector has started 2025 with an increase in foreign visitors and income and in Athens is expected A record of visitors in summer.
THE GREAT CHALLENGE: EMPLOYMENT. The problem is that for a country to stand out on the international tourist map, it does not arrive with having beaches, deposits, good weather and a first cuisine. The sector needs something much more basic and structural: laboura template capable of attending to that growing flow of visitors. And in Greece that part of the gear has been failing.
Explains it today The Guardian in An article In which he details that, just a few weeks after the high season in the region, the hospitality and food sector, key pieces of the tourism industry, have pending 80,000 positions. A huge hole of vacancies that is equivalent to a personnel deficit in the receptions of hotels and bars.
The most curious thing is that the problem is not new. The Greek tourism industry has been dragging it for a long time without, so far, it has found a way to solve it. On the contrary. The Athenian newspaper Kathimerini explained a year ago That the personnel deficit in hotels and restaurants has been aggravated as postpandemic tourism recovered: in 2021 he added 57,700 vacancies, in 2022 they were already 60,000, in 2023 the 60,000 were exceeded and in 2024 there were 80,000, 53,000 corresponding to hotels and 30,000 to the hospitality industry.
Hotels, the big challenge. In April Scan TV He already warned that the sector appears to a new summer campaign with the same problem and required that the deficit remains around the 80,000 jobs, a hole that is felt especially in hotels. The challenge is not only to find employees willing to cover those vacancies, but to find trained professionals, which is what entrepreneurs are missing. “What we are seeing is an unprecedented shortage of qualified and experienced workers,” alert the president of the Panhellenic Federation of Food and Tourism Workers, Poeet.
But … why? That is the big question. If the Greek tourism industry grows, receives more visitors and enters more money, why does it cost so much to find staff? There are several factors at stake. One of the main ones, such as Remember from Poeetit is “the exodus of employees” that during the pandemic left the sector (very punished for confinements and restrictions) and no longer returned.
To that is added the Demographic decline of Greece, which has been losing population for years until 10.4 million of inhabitants, and the emigration of Thousands of students and workers After the economic crisis of 2008. In fact, tourism is not the only one sector that has encountered difficulties in finding employees in the country. It happens to agriculture or construction.
The Greek authorities insist that in recent years thousands of positions have been created in sectors such as logistics, commerce or health and are trying to capture professionals from other emigrated countries and compatriots. There are those who has seen an exit in the regulation of immigrants who illegally reach the country or in asylum applicants. The Guardian Precise that some have already received training in the Hellenic Association of Hotels to work in the country.
The background problem. The hospitality will not be easy. Although demand grows and the authorities emphasize that tourism It is being disseminatedremains a sector with very specific conditions that complicate to capture labor. “Once the season is over, workers are only entitled to three months of unemployment. How do you expect to survive the rest of the year?” He wonders Giorgos Hotzoglou, from Poett, in statements to The Guardian.
The truth is that with the deficit of professionals as a backdrop, Greek workers have already mobilized to protest their loss of purchasing power, motivated by low wages and high cost of life. “The situation of the workers of the hotel sector in Greece is especially difficult, with a high level of precarious work, hours of work not registered and low wages,” The association warns EFFAT. Precisely to avoid marathon days, the country has just released a hours of registration of hours, the Digital work card.
Images | Terrazzo (Flickr) and Dermuecke (Flickr)
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