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The catering industry lost a lot of staff during the corona pandemic. We asked about the situation with landlords in the Weilheim-Schongau district.
District – “Seven months of short-time work is already a house number,” says Katharina Haller, owner of the Gasthaus Sonne in Peißenberg and deputy district chairwoman of the hotel and restaurant association. But the crisis has meant a lot more to the hospitality industry. A good 16 percent of the employed people have left the business, according to NGG, and now that the bars and hotels are allowed to reopen, the staff is extremely scarce.
Many hoteliers and landlords in the district can confirm this. He has “just enough staff for the restaurant,” reports Moritz Link, owner of the Landgasthof Osterseen in Iffeldorf. Haller has been looking for a cook for a long time, too. But what are the reasons for this shortage of skilled workers? The opinions of the landlords in the district differ.
That is why there is a lack of staff in the catering industry
The industry has a very unstable reputation at the moment, of course. In addition, many would simply not have been able to make ends meet during the many lockdowns with the short-time work allowance, normally 60 percent of their actual wages, explains Link. In such cases, he also understands his employees.
Haller is of the opinion that the main problem in the industry is the inconvenient working hours. Because of the short-time work, “many people try something new and get a taste for it”, because in other jobs they usually not only have better working hours, but are often better paid.
From both statements it can be seen that the working conditions in the hospitality industry left something to be desired even before Corona. Stiev Stoll, operator of the Hohenberg castle restaurant, agrees: “The seeds were sown wrongly 20 years ago.” Working in the catering industry has never been easy, says Stoll. But too often it happens that poor company and poor pay are not worth the hard work.
Collective agreements as a solution?
The NGG also emphasizes that the working conditions in the catering industry were so bad even before the pandemic that the professions in the industry became increasingly unpopular. As a solution, the union is calling for collective agreements. The industry could “commit itself to poverty-proof wages and better working conditions”, said state chairman Mustafa Öz.
What is certain is that the shortage of skilled workers in the district makes work much more difficult for many restaurants. Former employees in the trade often find more pleasant working conditions in company cafeterias or old people’s homes, explains Stoll. But “they quickly get tired of just making sandwiches”. He believes: “If you have a bit of gastronomic blood in you, you will come back.”
Isabel Kempe, deputy hotel manager of the Pöltner Hof in Weilheim, also believes that it is important to appreciate the gastronomy more and make it more interesting. Your company was able to keep most of the employees during the Corona period because they were able to increase the short-time work allowance to 80 percent. Such concessions are necessary: ”If you want to keep the employees, you have to give them a treat,” says Kempe.
Of course, it is also clear that better pay for restaurant staff would also mean higher prices for guests. But Öz from NGG Bayern is sure that many guests would be happy with slightly higher prices if that meant preserving the beloved restaurants.
FROM HANNAH BECK
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