Bar and restaurant owners concerned about shortage of waiting staff and cooks on the Costa del Sol

"It is proving very difficult to recruit waiters and kitchen staff," said Manuel Villafaina, President of the Association of Beach Businessmen on the Costa del Sol. Villafaina has estimated that between 1,000 and 1,500 people need to be hired to work in the famous chiringuitos and has doubts that they will be able to achieve this. "There are establishments that tell us that they are going to have to set up fewer tables," he said.

El Balneario co-owner José Luis Ramos added: "Malaga is going to be bursting at the seams and we are really worried. Right now we need to take on between 40 and 50 kitchen and dining room staff, apart from the extras at weekends, and we can't find them." For this establishment, like many others, Easter is the starting signal for the high season.

Javier Frutos, President of the association of hospitality businesses of Malaga, Mahos, shared the concern of his associates, although he does not want to talk about alarm bells yet. "It is true: there is a lack of qualified professionals," he said.

Why is there a lack of waiting staff and cooks in a province with such a long tradition in the hospitality and catering trade and an unemployment rate of over 20%? There are two arguments that are often used: "The pay is poor and the working conditions are bad". The other: "The unemployed prefer not to work and continue to receive their benefit money".

In reality, there are a multitude of causes that have converged in the current situation. One is the explosion of hospitaliy and catering businesses, which has occurred throughout Spain.

"Twenty years ago there were 800,000 direct jobs in the hospitality and catering sector in Spain and now there are 1,700,000", Frutos said. The situation is particularly striking in Malaga city and on the Costa del Sol. Last year, the sector reached a record number of staff employed in Malaga province, with an average of 86,000 workers throughout the year and a summer peak of 102,000.

With more bars and restaurants open, the pool of unemployed workers that the sector used to 'pull' in summer has been reduced. The number of unemployed in the hospitality sector in Malaga province in the last quarter of 2022 was just over 16,000: 16 per cent less than in 2021 and 22 per cent less than in 2019. The high cost of housing does not help either: many workers who used to come from other provinces or inland to work on the coast in summer now do not do so because they cannot find accommodation.

And during the pandemic there were many workers who, faced with the hospitality and catering industry's standstill, preferred to try their luck in other sectors rather than stay on the government assistance, ERTE. These employees "have not returned; they are in construction or logistics," said Villafaina, who also recognised a problem of generational replacement.