Hotel and catering: a 5% increase in the minimum wage to make the sector attractive

Europe 1 12:26 p.m., December 19, 2021, modified at 12:31 p.m., December 19, 2021

INTERVIEW

On Thursday, the employers' organizations in the hotel and catering industry proposed a new salary scale ensuring at least 5% revaluation on the minimum wage.

A stage of the negotiations, still subject to the signature of the unions of employees.

For Thierry Grégoire, president of the seasonal workers branch of the UMIH, the main organization in the sector, on the rest of the grid this translates into "an average increase of 16%".

"We have a responsibility for the attractiveness of our professions because we have lost a certain number of employees", adds the representative of the Union of professions and hospitality industries (UMIH), invited to the microphone of Europe 1 this Sunday.

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"The Covid has accelerated the erosion"

Currently, 30% of positions are unfilled in the hotel and catering industry.

And in total, nearly 237,000 employees left the profession during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the head of the employers' organization qualifies: "The Covid has only accelerated the erosion because we had already, for ten years, 100,000 unfilled jobs."

Would salary increases be THE solution to stem the crisis in the sector?

"It was important to revalue the salary grid from the conventional minimums. (...) But there are also working conditions. It is on this second aspect that we are committed to working from next year. . " 

Cancellations linked to the tightening of health rules

With in particular, an improvement in night work, cuts but also work on weekends.

During the holidays, restaurateurs have had, as best they can, adapt their opening hours and days due to lack of manpower.

"It is a reality, unfortunately. We also have employees who have not understood or who understand but who no longer want us to work when our customers are on rest periods."

And the tightening of health measures is not ready to reassure restaurant owners and hotel professionals, already victims of 5 to 10% cancellation due to the closure of the Franco-British border.

"Keeping our businesses alive"

"The reception organizers are probably the ones who have been hit the hardest. December is a very important month for them and they have between 80 and 90% of cancellations due to the sanitary restrictions. We are pushing forward. maximum support, particularly from the Solidarity Fund, (...) to keep our businesses alive. "

For this, Thierry Grégoire calls on the executive to listen to the demands of restaurateurs and hoteliers, with, for example, a repayment of loans guaranteed by the State "not before 10 years".

"The executive must understand that there can be a terrible breakage in the spring," he concludes.