Spanish restaurant owner: I offer €2,000 gross but no one applies

Some venues offer €2,000 gross a month and still can't fill their kitchen or bar positions. Plácido, a restaurant owner, shared this in a report by Espejo Público on Antena 3 about the shortage of waiters and cooks.

## €2,000 gross and the empty chair

Plácido, a restaurateur, said it in a report on **Espejo Público**, on **Antena 3**, about the shortage of waiters: he can pay a qualified person **€2,000 gross** a month and they still don't come. Salary is usually the first suspect when a position goes unfilled. Here it doesn't seem to be the problem, and he himself admits he has raised the offer.

The complaint is nothing new, nor is it exclusive to July and August. The shortage of waiters and cooks has been repeating for years, and the peaks of public complaint come in summer, at Easter and at Christmas. These are the times when the sector needs the most hands and finds the fewest.

## Split shifts and a month's holiday in summer

The crux lies in how the work is done, not just in how much it pays. Split shifts are unpopular, so continuous shifts have to be offered, and that makes it hard to staff a team that works while everyone else rests. Weekends are part of the job.

The month of summer holidays falls, moreover, right in high season. Anyone hoping to have Saturdays, Sundays and August off will find it difficult in a restaurant, and the sector competes with other service jobs with friendlier hours.

## Training someone for a year only for the competition to poach them

What stings most, in his words, is training someone. A worker takes around **a year** to become a skilled professional, and once they are, they leave. Between venues, the fight for staff is waged by watching how other establishments' employees work and offering better conditions.

It's the sector's vicious circle: without staff there's no service, and without attractive conditions there's no staff. Any decision on wages, hours or contracts should be made with your own numbers and with labour advice, not just on the impression of one season.