Hotels and restaurants, companies are looking for staff

A glimmer of hope is opening up in eastern Liguria for companies in the food & beverage and hospitality sector that are unable to find personnel. The employment agency Cooperjob, together with the consultancy firm Rigatoni, specialised in the food and beverage sector, have organised in Chiavari (Genoa) the event Food & beverage hospitality - recruiting day, which takes place today, 11 April, and was created with the aim of meeting the recruitment needs of Horeca personnel. Over the course of one recruiting day, job offer and demand and training opportunities will be compared. Eleven companies and groups are taking part in the event, with 40 active searches.

In 2025, explains Stefano Granata, president of Cooperjob and Confcooperative Federsolidarietà, 'the commerce, catering and hotel industry will have to reckon with a national shortage of 258,000 workers; a figure that marks a 4% increase over the previous year, configuring a real emergency for the country. Liguria, for its part, will wake up in 2025 with a problem it can no longer ignore: its coasts will be crowded with tourists, but hotels, restaurants and accommodation facilities will lack the people to welcome them. The shortage of skilled workers has become a real problem'.

The reasons for the shortage, according to the organisers of the meeting, are many. In recent years, more and more young people have left the tourism and catering sector, attracted by more stable, better paid jobs or jobs with less tiring hours. Vocational training is also struggling to keep up: hotel schools, with their specialisation courses for chefs, sommeliers and receptionists, are not able to fill the gap left by those who have changed direction. To make matters worse, many seasonal workers, especially foreigners, have stopped coming to Liguria because of the high cost of living and the difficulties in finding affordable accommodation.

Still on the Ligurian territory, some restaurants close one or two days a week due to lack of staff; hotels reduce the number of rooms available, to avoid overloading the existing staff; experiences such as guided tours or food and wine tours, decrease, due to the absence of guides and escorts. Finally, tourists, if they were initially enthusiastic about visiting Liguria, are beginning to notice inconveniences: longer waits in restaurants, difficulties in finding quality services, less attention to hospitality.

The Chiavari meeting, therefore, becomes an opportunity for the food & beverage and hospitality companies of the Levante Ligure region, says Granata, "to meet qualified candidates and meet selection needs, thanks to the support of specialised recruiters. For the candidates it will be a concrete opportunity to find employment'. After a screening and pre-selection phase by the recruiters, in fact, "it will be possible to hold immediate interviews, with the aim of targeted matching to find the right profile".