The problems to find waiters are exacerbated at each season that passes, after the pandemic, the workers went to other sectors. Businessmen, unions and workers coincide in the diagnosis, but differ in who is to blame. The employees of the restoration, a good part of them, do not see attractive a sector in which the tonic are the low salaries, the few days of rest, the many hours of work and a collective agreement expired and that in general is not fulfilled. The unions consider that the sector resists changing a “modern slavery” model, demand more sanctions. “Either the tourism sector reinvents or no one will remain,” other workers predict. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are desperate to find labor: “We no longer look for professionals, only people,” he regrets one.
and with irreparable damage on the flotation line. It is a fish that bites the tail: working conditions do not improve and workers do not want to go through the hoop. The last collective agreement, corresponding to the period 2022-2024 (and therefore already expired), included some labor improvements, but in general-in large hotels with union representation, the situation is better than in bars and restaurants-they are not fulfilled, although some entrepreneurs remember that they had to close one day a week or reduce schedules to meet and be able to give two days of rest to their staff.
![DVD 1269 06/02/25 PLATJA D'Aro, Girona. A waiter works on the terrace of a restaurant at the front line of beach. [ALBERT GARCIA] The country](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/3UCRQQDSYJHYTOOI4AJS3TWX7E.jpg?auth=ff7e62a74d0d475a0f619334d89bc60fcbf1c084b966facb865ac4a094180a45&width=414)
All agree: “The priority of those who seek work has changed.” Both the president of the Hospitality Guild of Lloret de Mar, Enric Dots, and the spokesman of the Business Federation of Hostaleria I Turisme de Tarragona, Xavier Guardià, are clear that the sector is unattractive by factors such as schedules of difficult conciliation, difficulty finding housing, bad transport and temporality connections. Drays asks administrations to enhance subsidy policy, promote occupation. “Those who receive help do not want to use eight months, because then they lose it, they prefer to do loose jobs.” That is why he asks that “leave the aid in suspense if there is a high work and recover with the decline.” This situation is common in other sectors such as fishing and agriculture, he points out. Guardià believes that another issue to analyze is “the high accident rate, because the number of casualties is very high.”
The vice president of the Hospitality Federation of Girona, Jesús Pont: “The sector is very upset because it is not heard.” “Social policies have passed over occupation and losing the desire to work, we must enhance the effort,” he says. For Pont “it is necessary that you bet on a sector that, for example, in Girona, represents 20% of GDP.” There must be dialogue, training and occupation policies that dignify the sector. “Believe that” the administration goes one way and reality on the other. “Therefore, it predicts a hopeful future:” The current panorama makes the children do not want to continue in family businesses. “
“If we are not prepared to serve so many people, that the administrations limit the entrance and do not empower tourism, to see if they see reality,” says Maurici, hotelier and restorative of Begur. “Thus we will not survive, everything will be great chains,” he predicts.
For UGT general secretary in Girona, Maxi Rica, “things are doing badly.” The agreement – which established improvements as two days in a row of weekly rest, a weekend per month and day of 8 hours – ended in 2024, and the new one is already negotiated. “A progress has been made, but not enough, and a sector with a lot of small business makes it difficult,” he says. He criticizes that “the employer instead of taking advantage of collective bargaining to transform the sector, making a real diagnosis of the situation and looking for solutions in common, intends to deregulate and subtract salary rights.” “It must assume responsibility, not everything is the administration,” he says and invites them to “analyze because they do not find personnel who do not require high qualification.” To be able to change it “a new Tourism Law of Catalonia that replaces the current, outdated and economist “and, as the sector,” disconnected from reality. “
The positive note comes from training. The squares are filled. The director of the School of Hospitality and Tourism of Girona, Jordi García, explains that they have done actions to make visible the studies and their departures and all this has given results. In addition, your students go out with work. Garcia believes that most entrepreneurs do recognize that a change is needed, especially because “however prepared the staff comes out, what they end up valuing is their time. The priorities have changed, They seek to reconcile work and free time, more than money. “
Albert has been serving meals on the Costa Brava for 40 years, he has seen a slight change, for years he has not had rest in summer and now he has a day. But he regrets: “We continue to falsify schedules and charging in black because the goal of the businessman is to fill the pockets.” “After the COVID there has not been an inspection of health or work,” he says, and is convinced that “if they do not scare the entrepreneur with large sanctions, the agreement is useless.”
The tourism sector, the main engine of the territory, occupies more than half a million people in Catalonia. At the end of April there were 325,717 unemployed in the SOC offices, 11,313 less than in April 2024, with a 3.36% decrease in the last twelve months. The largest drop in unemployment has been in Girona, of 1,169 people (3.93%) and the child in Barcelona, with 3,226 (1.31%).
