Guest Post: Here’s The Real Reason The Maltese Hospitality Sector Is Failing To Attract Quality Staff
No – wages are not ‘very high’ and yes, low wages damage the appeal of the sector
I was bemused to read Lovin Malta’s article featuring comments by outspoken local chef and restaurant owner Sean Gravina, who insisted that the staff shortage facing catering and hospitality establishments is due solely to antisocial industry working hours – and not offensively low wages, as all conventional wisdom indicates.
Gravina, an accomplished chef with an impressive international career, acknowledged that “something is wrong big time” in terms of the manpower available in his industry, but refused to shoulder any of the blame for this shortage, shunning it off to the inherent character of the work, which naturally requires anti-social hours.
Maltese people, he claims, choose not to work in the catering industry for “one reason and one reason only, because of the work-life balance – hours.”
It is not, he seems to believe, because of any lack of appreciation or respect granted to workers in the sector or because of the general instability of the industry, which the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the forefront.
Far less is it because of the meagre wages paid to staff which, he repeats for emphasis without specifying how much his own establishment pays its staff, are “good, very good.”
Apparently, Gravina has been too long absent from the restaurant floor.
Indeed, junior hospitality staff are required to work long hours, often at night times and on public holiday – but to give an example, so are those entering the iGaming industry in junior customer support roles.
These professionals, which have many of the same characteristics required from hospitality workers – language skills, manners and other interpersonal soft skills – are faced with a choice; sit at their laptop all evening on their own following a script to solve the complaints of online gamblers, or work the same evening as part of usually close-knit teams of colleagues on their feet, interacting with customers from all over the world.
It is a pity that so many seem to be choosing the prior option, but owners and industry leaders have mostly themselves to blame.
By treating hospitality workers (especially those in front-of-house positions) as food and drink delivering buffoons for so long, they have sucked all the nobility and pride out of the industry.
Staff are often paid barely over the minimum wage (which for those lucky enough to be uninitiated is just below €5 an hour), and after long enough in the sector respond by delivering parallel effort and losing any hope of professional growth in the sector.
Subsisting on these wages is no joke, especially with cost of living soaring and quality of life on a steady decline and these low wages, despite Gravina’s outlandish suggestion, are not the invention of any union.
The National Statistics Office’s most recent Labour Force Survey, covering the final quarter of 2021, found that the average monthly basic salary for employees in the category covering hospitality workers – wholesale and retail trade, transportation and storage, accommodation and food service activities – was only €1,223, barely above the €1,211 brought in by construction workers.
The wage similarity between these sectors is striking, despite the gulf in the actual skillsets and character required.
Construction is by no means an easy sector to work in, and I would challenge anyone who characterises it as “unskilled” to spend even half a day in the Mediterranean sun laying concrete, but it is a sector where roles can be filled by trained, committed and hardworking third-country nationals.
Quality hospitality workers on the other hand, require cultural reference points and language skills that are often not immediately attainable by imported workers who the Government and trade organisations hope will act as a band aid for staff shortages.
Simply put, hospitality owners and leaders must entirely reconsider their approach to staffing, beginning by paying their staff respectable wages. If they can’t afford to do so, then conventional economic wisdom suggests that their business is simply not viable.
The training initiatives to promote hospitality as a career floated by organisations like the Association of Catering Establishments might be a good start, but workers need to feel appreciated, and bringing pay in line with the country’s cost of living will, in the long run be the only way to do so.
If they are unwilling to raise wages, then the Government should take action, hiking minimum wage to ensure that in an increasingly competitive international tourism market, myopic and self-destructive owners are able to employ staff who will give visitors and locals alike the best possible experience.
Solomon Cefai is a former Malta-based business journalist and junior hospitality professional with experience from Malta, UK, and USA
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Do you agree with these reasons behind staff shortages in the catering industry?