Greece season begins
TUI creates more than a thousand new jobs
4/4/2022, 8:08 p.m
Battered by two pandemic years and drastic job cuts, TUI is starting the season with good hopes: the travel company is advertising more than a thousand new jobs. In Greece, the beach holiday begins immediately.
After significant cuts in recent years, the TUI Group wants to create additional jobs abroad and in the digital sector. There are vacancies for more than 1,000 employees in the destinations, as well as another 500 in IT, technology and online business, according to information from the evening. The vast majority are about new positions – a small part is accounted for by replacements for positions that have been vacant in the meantime.
TUI has set itself the goal of getting as close as possible to the pre-Corona booking level this summer. Accordingly, one wants to invest more in the staff, it said. The provider brought the start of the important Greek season forward by a few weeks. In the holiday countries, TUI is looking for tour guides or new staff for fitness training, childcare and entertainment. The target group of the digital jobs are specialists in software and data analysis – the group wants to attract them with flexible working models.
Protection against dismissal until 2023 for Germany
“TUI is leaner, more digital and more efficient after the pandemic,” said HR director Sybille Reiß. “Now we are preparing the company for growth again. People want to travel. We see the demand.” The online channels were also doing well, the manager explained. “Now we are strengthening the teams in IT and e-commerce in order to further advance digitization.” That’s why we want to hire new talent. “We are becoming more and more of a digital platform company.”
In mid-March, it was agreed that the employees of the TUI majority companies in Germany should receive a basic job guarantee until the end of 2023. According to company circles, there was agreement on “the most extensive protection against dismissal, unless reduction measures have already been determined”. The world’s largest tourism provider recently drove a personnel austerity course. After the first Corona year 2020, a total of 8000 jobs were on the cross-off list across the group and worldwide. There were billions in state aid. The first lines of credit from this are now being returned.
The cuts that have already been made in administration, travel agencies and the airline TUIfly were highly controversial among the workforce. Many offers and processes will be digitized even more – CEO Fritz Joussen had already announced this plan before the pandemic. This creates new opportunities for skilled workers. “Already today almost 1000 IT developers work for TUI”, said Reiß. A cloud-based, uniform IT platform is currently being set up for all TUI markets.
Dispute over TUIfly
There was a dispute, especially with their own airline. Some pilots went to labor courts. The reason for the contraction in the division is the handling of overcapacity in aircraft, especially in the winter when travel is weaker. A compromise that was reached a year ago after months of negotiations provides for a reduction in the fleet in Germany – but not as much as initially planned. TUI also cut costs in some travel agencies.
This year, the Mediterranean market of Greece is to be expanded alongside Spain and Turkey. The first TUI customers have just arrived in Heraklion on Crete. Joussen set the goal of surpassing the 2019 level at the Greek destinations with a total of three million guests. Last year, Greece was only able to open to tourists in mid-May. A lot needs to be done now.