Hospitality is not the only sector struggling to recruit. Firms face labour shortages even as 2.4m people are officially looking for work
Two months after France reopened outdoor dining, restaurants and bars face a staffing crunch. The share of hospitality firms reporting recruitment problems doubled in June from the previous month, according to a Bank of France survey. When restaurants and hotels were closed for months during lockdown, many former staff acquired a taste for normal family life, says Julia Rousseau, head of Éthique, a recruitment consultancy.
Hospitality is not the only sector with this trouble. In June 44% of all firms reported recruitment problems, with the figure rising to 50% for construction work. “The bottleneck for French growth in mid-2021”, wrote François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Bank of France, earlier this month, is “the reappearance, already, of hiring difficulties.” France’s case is particularly striking because its unemployment rate, at 7.
In parallel, there is an attempt to redesign the unemployment-benefit rules to encourage people to work. President Emmanuel Macron’s reform involves, among other things, curbing the generous pay-outs to high-earners while also increasing from four to six months the length of service required to qualify for full benefits. This latter measure is designed to discourage firms from creating short-term contracts, which they do knowing that people can fall back on benefits in between.
Staff shortages in the hospitality business may be linked to its generous furlough schemes. This will be tested at the end of August, when such workers will get only 72% of salaries rather than 84%. That may help firms entice staff back. So might better pay. For the moment, as restaurants prepare to check vaccination passes at entry, uncertainty is discouraging them from promising higher wages.
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