Llanes Hospitality Seeks Hired Migrants

Llanes seeks to hire registered migrants for the summer

The Llanes hospitality association has asked local authorities for an agile protocol to hire migrants registered in the municipality, addressing the shortage of staff in bars and restaurants during the summer season. The request, circulated on social media, has peine the debate on a tourism model dependent on temporary labor and the sector's working conditions. In a country with **one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Europe**, the paradox is evident: there are plenty of candidates on paper but a lack of waiters in practice.

What exactly do Llanes hospitality owners ask for?

The proposal is not to hire people in irregular situations, but to enable a mechanism so that those already residing in the municipality can work legally. Their argument is that there are people living in the area who receive social services but cannot access formal employment. The sector maintains that the problem is not about wages, but availability: Llanes is about **100 kilometers from Gijón, Oviedo, and Santander**, which limits the radius for attracting workers.

Summer in the region is intense. Bars fill up, parking becomes impossible, and short-term rentals skyrocket. In this context, the equation doesn't add up: paying enough to compensate for commuting and accommodation in a strained area requires margins that many businesses don't have.

The problem isn't a lack of hands, it's the cost of hands

The most common interpretation is that the sector wants cheap and flexible labor. It is argued that hospitality owners prefer workers without full rights rather than raising wages or improving schedules. Hospitality has historically functioned as a family business: the owner at the bar, the vvife in the kitchen, and the children serving tables. This model has broken down due to depopulation, aging, and housing prices in coastal areas.

Some recall that in the nineties and two thousands there was a similar process: mafias offering foreign workers for less than half the salary of a Spaniard, media amplifying the narrative that nationals didn't want to work, and politicians facilitating entry. The result was a pogre precarization of the sector.

Wages, accommodation, and hours: the numbers don't add up

The calculation is simple. If a waiter earns **€900 a month** and renting an apartment in Llanes during July and August eats up much of that salary, the incentive disappears. Job offers for **€1 an hour** have been published, giving an idea of the wage floor in some cases. Without affordable accommodation or humane hours, turnover is constant and service quality suffers.

The solution proposed by some is to raise prices and pay better. Others believe the problem is structural: as long as tourist housing continues to strain the market, no hospitality wage will be sufficient. And some point to the State: taxes, social security contributions, and bureaucracy make it unviable to compete with other destinations.

Immigration, unemployment, and free market: a clash of narratives

The debate quickly drifts toward migration policy. One side argues that people in irregular situations cannot be hired and that priority should go to unemployed national workers. Another recalls that Spain has **1.5 million public employees** according to a circulating report, and that the problem is not a lack of people willing to work, but a lack of dignified conditions.

There are also those who defend that the labor market should regulate itself, without state intervention, and those who call for limiting the number of hospitality establishments per municipality, as is done with pharmacies and tobacco shops. The discussion on whether registered migrants should be able to work legally clashes with the current regulatory framework, which requires residence and work permits.

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The question is not whether Llanes needs waiters in the summer. The question is who is willing to pay what it costs for someone to serve them.