After the pandemic, economic experts point out that 2022 will be a year of tourist record. The hotels will hang the full sign, the leisure areas will be overflowing and the restaurants and bars will be full. Precisely for this reason the news has jumped that the waiter positions are not being filled and are insufficient to support the demand.
73,000 workers who were dedicated to the hospitality industry before the pandemic have not returned to their jobs. This “voluntary and massive exodus of the workforce” that does not return to their old jobs, as they explain to us in Xataka, is what in the United States has been called “The Great Renunciation” and it seems that is coming to Spain in the hospitality sector.
However,why is there this shortage of waiters? Well, the waiters do not want to be waiters for the salary (apparently) and the hoteliers say that the problem is that their hands are tied and that “I wish they could pay more”. But low wages are not the only problem of a profession that is in the spotlight.
What happens when half of your salary (at least) is in black
Esther Miguel is 32 years old and is responsible for Processes and Innovation at Webedia, but at the age of 17 she entered the world of hospitality as a waitress. In her second summer working for the same bar in a very touristy seaside town, she was offered what some dare to call “part-time”, eight hours of work. But as Esther explains to us “I only quoted four and the other four I charged in black”so when he had an accident at work that left him with a huge 19-point scar above his knee as a souvenir, he found himself on sick leave and receiving only what was declared.
“I only quoted four and the other four I charged in black”
“I had an accident at work because the place did not follow half of the safety regulations: I went to throw a huge and very heavy garbage into the container and there must have been some can or glass inside.” The result was a three-week sick leave during which he received inquisitive calls from his boss. “I was constantly wondering what the doctors were telling me about when I could rejoin.”
According to INE data, a waiter earns an average of 1,300 euros gross per month, the lowest salary next to that of unskilled workers, to which it must be added that the contracts are short (in 2021 two out of three were temporary). And that when at least there is a contract involved.
Maricarmen, 38, put drinks in a bar while studying for about three years. “I worked without a contract and not very well paid”, he confesses to us. Although as a counterpoint, in addition to being a bar waitress, she worked in a restaurant and lived a different situation. “When I have worked in a restaurant as a waitress, it has always been with a contract adjusted to my hours and without overtime, only working what I had to do.”
The same happens with Lola J. Espejo, a 26-year-old editor who worked for a couple of summers in a restaurant in Granada and without a contract. “I worked in black and had no schedule. If they called me on my day off because there were a lot of reservations, I had to go.” And as the Spanish proverb says “neither paid nor grateful”, because Lola assures that if she stayed half an hour or 45 minutes more, they would not pay her that extra time as she should have. “At the end of the week, and as if it were a favor, she gave me ‘5 extra euros for the loose half hours’, even though those half hours were three hours more a week.”
The difference of being a waiter inside and outside of Spain
The chef Ferrán Adriá said in an interview that in a few years the waiters “are going to charge more than a lawyer” and pointed out the great difference in salaries with Paris, for example.
Maricarmen explained to us that she worked as a waitress, and she did it in Spain for two years “in an American chain, where breaks and occupational risks were taken very seriously”, and in a family business. in Italy for nine months, where he assures that “you charge better than in Spain”.
“In Spain they treat you more as if you were a slave than a worker”
But although in other parts of Europe the waiters already they charge 3,500 euros a month, is not the only difference. In addition to Granada, Lola worked as a waitress in Sweden. “Everything is much more respected there. The schedule is the schedule and you don’t miss another minute, ”she explains. “At check-out time everyone parks what they are doing and what is left undone is done the next day”, and adds that “there when you treat the customer well they usually leave you quite neat tips, valuing that you have a good service. In Spain they treat you more as if you were a slave than a worker.”
The extra handicap that waitresses experience daily
“I suppose that what has happened to all of us, that a slimy man comes and tells you ‘hello, you are very pretty today’ or they tell you how your clothes fit and things like that that they would never say to men. They don’t tell a man ‘how beautiful your hair is today’ or ‘how good you smell’”, something that Lola affirms that it did not happen to her in Sweden either. “Customers did not drool like in Spain.”
In this type of work, women are even more vulnerable than men. “As a waitress in a cocktail bar, the daily bread is that they try to get you in every night”, Maricarmen confesses to us, who assures us that on some occasion she was even afraid, something that in her own words “should not happen in any job ”.
“Someone tried to get into the bar and I found myself in a situation where, at 19, you don’t know what to do”
“Someone tried to get into the bar and I found myself in a situation where, at 19, you don’t know what to do.” So much so that Maricarmen did not say anything about his work at home. “They asked me how the day had gone and I always said that it was fine in case my parents had an attack. Imagine that your 19-year-old daughter arrives and she tells you that a drunk has tried to sneak into the bar. The worst according to Maricarmen is how alcohol affects some people. “It’s as if they lose control and suddenly believe they are entitled to everything.”
Obviously, these testimonies do not mean that 100% of the cases in the hotel industry are like this, but it is significant and what seems to be the “Great Renunciation” approaching He is giving us a message and Esther is clear about it: ”I have seen many people not last even three days because of the pressure. Looking for something in another sector seems to me no longer logical, but mere survival instinct.”
Photos | friends, Crew, Andriyko Podilnyk, Helena Lopes, Liam Martens, louis hansel Y Di_An_h in unsplash