Some tourism professionals will have to operate in degraded mode. In La Grande-Motte (Hérault), a restaurant used social networks to give itself a better chance of recruiting.
The labor shortage remains the big black spot of the coming season. In La Grande-Motte, we had to use great means to find a pizza maker. With a lot of announcements on social networks, the management of Prose, a storefront restaurant, posted the following announcement: “CDI at €2,400 net per month, full hours paid, two days off per week and accommodation”. The first announcements did not have the expected success: “Well obviously we won’t have pizza this summer… it’s discouraging”announces Joris Bauchais, the director of the establishment.
This time the announcement is taken seriously. The Prose executive assistant assures us that nearly 450 people responded. “This allowed us to recruit our pizza maker and fill a few vacancies, but we are still missing two qualified pool leaders and two runners (room clerks, editor’s note), while the season has already started”. “I know that some hotels and some restaurants will have to open in degraded mode, for lack of staff. Instead of 100 covers it will be 70 and instead of 50 rooms it will be 35. We will have to reduce the airfoil”deplores Jean Pinard of CRTL Occitanie.
The housing problem
To cope with the shortage, most professionals recruit employees from Poland, Tunisia or Morocco. Jacques Mestre in his emblematic restaurant in La Grande-Motte is sorry: “We can’t find anyone, I close on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I’ve been doing this job for 50 years, I’ve never seen this, no one wants to work anymore”. The head of the Union of trades in the hotel industry of Hérault organized in the Thau basin a training of scaling clerk in alternation with the key, a salary at Smic in CDI with a bonus: “Pôle emploi and the CCI had summoned 65 young people, 6 came. At the restaurant I offer salaries of €2,000 net and I can’t find it. Especially since there is the problem of housing”. The prices of apartments by the sea have become inaccessible: “We have to find land and transport to house seasonal workers, otherwise it will be catastrophic. And if we make less revenue, it will also be less income for the State”. CQFD.