Churn during lockdown
Service providers again fear a shortage of staff
02/20/2022, 08:11 am
An almost familiar routine: The Corona rules are relaxed, restaurants and hotels can breathe easy. But then they often struggle with the next problem: lack of staff. With the current round of easing, the pattern threatens to repeat itself.
Germany opens again. It is still unclear when exactly which corona restriction will apply in which federal state. However, the trend is clear: as early as spring, many restaurants and hotels are allowed to reopen as usual, trade fairs and concerts can take place, and trips no longer have to be postponed. But this requires a lot of staff – and that is often lacking. This has little to do with the well-known shortage of skilled workers in numerous sectors. “We are now also experiencing a shortage in the contact-intensive sectors, i.e. in gastronomy and Co.”, says Enzo Weber, professor at the Nuremberg Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency. According to Weber, the reason for the problems in the past was primarily the short-term nature of the lockdown and easing measures. “Then the job market didn’t have time to react.”
The situation was particularly dramatic in May 2021, says the general manager of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga), Ingrid Hartges: After a long lockdown phase, the catering and hotel industry was missing numerous employees – and customers felt it too, because restaurants for example, shortened their opening hours. In the course of the past year, however, the number of employees has increased again. Hartges expects a similar effect now: “It is also quite possible this year that, for example, in January and February, with the increase in short-time work, skilled workers migrated again.” She hopes that the industry can win back the lost employees.
IAB expert Weber assumes that the staff shortage is not a permanent condition. “It’s true that there are still workers for the catering industry,” he explains. They just aren’t standing right in front of the door when it opens because they’ve been looking for other jobs in the meantime – in test centers, in logistics or with delivery services, for example.
migrated to other sectors of the economy
Similar short-term bottlenecks also threaten in other sectors: In the event sector, for example, the self-employed and unskilled workers in particular have migrated to other economic sectors, says Jens Michow, President of the Federal Association of the Concert and Event Industry (BDKV). “This is a painful loss for the event companies that cannot be compensated for so quickly.”
The responsible association ADV reports something similar from the airports and the service companies working there: Many employees left the aviation companies during the crisis due to a lack of employment prospects. Travelers have to be prepared for capacity bottlenecks. Due to a lack of staff, among other things, travelers at Berlin Airport BER had to wait hours for check-in during the autumn holidays.
The trade fair business, on the other hand, is more optimistic: “The short-time work of the last two years has helped ensure that specialists in the industry have been retained and will soon be able to start again,” says Jörn Holtmeier, Managing Director of the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (Auma). According to the HDE trade association, stationary retail, which is otherwise so badly hit by Corona, is also struggling with a shortage of trainees. However, short-term staff shortages are not expected, it said on request.
The “Big Cancellation”
All in all, the situation on the service market in Germany is nowhere near as dramatic as elsewhere, says labor market expert Weber: “There was no Great Resignation in Germany.” In the USA, this “big layoff”, i.e. a mass exodus of workers since the end of the first lockdowns, has caused ongoing staff shortages in various sectors such as gastronomy.
On the other hand, according to Weber, the labor shortage in Germany has long-term components – demographic change, for example, which means that fewer and fewer workers are available. A possible countermeasure could be wage increases. “But for innkeepers who have gone through their worst financial crisis for two years, it is of course difficult,” says Weber. Increased immigration of skilled workers would be helpful. But that is not a short-term solution.
On the other hand, the expert sees room in the conversion of mini-jobs into positions subject to social security contributions or in the targeted recruitment of long-term unemployed people, “we still have almost 300,000 more than before the crisis.”
Dehoga calls for the planned increase in the earnings limit for mini-jobs to be brought forward. Actually, this should only increase from 450 to 520 euros on October 1st. A faster increase would help to bridge staff shortages, says Managing Director Hartges: “Particularly in outdoor gastronomy, which is well frequented even in spring, depending on the weather, mini-jobbers are really extremely important for us.”