Today there is barley soup. With an apple spritzer. Cost: 15 francs. Waiting time: 45 minutes. Quite long for a soup. In some mountain restaurants this is not a strange idea this winter. Because: The catering industry lacks staff. The situation is coming to a head, especially in the tourist mountain regions.
For example on Flumserberg in the canton of St. Gallen. In the summer season, the mountain railways employ 30 restaurant staff. In winter there are 120, spread over six restaurants. It was easier to pull 90 additional employees out of the hat, says managing director Mario Bislin (63). “The market for skilled workers has dried up, and great efforts are required for auxiliary workers to fill the positions.”
Foreign guest workers worry about quarantine
Bislin is therefore increasingly recruiting auxiliary workers abroad, for example in Portugal and Poland. There has been a shortage of skilled workers in the catering industry for a long time, and the pandemic has made the situation even worse. Numerous employees decided to retrain in the lockdown. Once they have migrated, they rarely return to their traditional industry. Wages are too low and working hours late at night and on weekends are too exhausting.
In addition, the lockdown in the middle of the ski season caught many employees on the wrong foot. Blick are aware of cases in which gastro personnel at the noble hotel Cervo in Zermatt VS was thrown out of the door from one day to the next. One affected person says that he will definitely not return to Mattertal this winter. The disappointment last winter was too big. The hotel itself did not comment on the allegations when asked by Blick.
Bislin also admits that the shortage of personnel in mountain restaurants is at least partly homemade. “As an employer, we have to make even more intensive efforts to train and develop our seasonal employees. With the hope that this will also lead to skilled workers. “
Bislin is not alone with his worries. Markus Wolf (48), managing director of the Weisse Arena Gruppe, operator of the mountain railways in Laax, GR, has something similar to report: “The HR department is under massive pressure. With foreign guest workers in particular, additional questions arise: ‹What about entry? Do I have to be in quarantine? ›We have employees from 30 different nations, so a lot comes together.”
The situation for the service employee from Germany is different from that for the ski instructor from New Zealand. Giving everyone the right information is becoming a mammoth task.
Zermatt takes special measures
In Zermatt VS, tourism experts are taking special measures. “We have had all the information regarding vaccinations, tests, corona regulations and so on translated into different languages and played it out via various channels in order to also reach guest workers from abroad,” explains Sabrina Marcolin, spokeswoman for Zermatt Tourism.
Because of this – and because Zermatt is world famous as a winter destination – the personnel situation there is less precarious than elsewhere. “So we can certainly not expect worse service,” assures Marcolin.
Working in the snow instead of under palm trees
Markus Wolf is also optimistic that he will still be able to fill the vacancies in Laax before the start of the winter season. “At least one can assume employment this year. That was not the case last year. “
But the pandemic is also bearing unexpected fruits. “We receive a few inquiries from Swiss people abroad who can no longer find employment in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean or on cruise ships,” says Mario Bislin.
Is that enough to fill the gap? In the lowlands, the shortage of staff over the summer months was so precarious that individual companies had to close in the meantime. This danger is far away in the mountain restaurants, assure the tourism experts from the Churfirsten to the Mattertal. So the barley soup is still there. Just with a longer waiting time.