Status: 09/30/2021 10:46 a.m.
Restaurants and pubs are filling up again. Restaurateurs could now make up for their lockdown losses. But who is in the kitchen when a cook earns half as much as a foreman on the construction site?
In the “Lux” in Münster you have a large selection on the menu: grill specialties, fresh salads and fish specialties – rather sophisticated cuisine. Managing director Marcus Gessler is pleased that people are daring to venture out again – and he would like to really get started. But it is currently only possible with the handbrake on: The Lux lacks a cook and a kitchen assistant. That’s why he has to take a day off.
The same game in another of his five establishments. He has already tried a lot: job centers, advertisements, tapping into private channels – no results. Cooks in particular are in short supply.
Qualified personnel has migrated
The problem: Many professionals in the hospitality industry have migrated to other industries in lockdown. Gessler has kept his permanent staff. He has set up a delivery platform and organizes popup events. But the causes for the lack of cookers arose before Corona. “The problem is the wages,” says Gessler. There is a lack of willingness to spend a little more money on food and drink in this country.
“The problem is the wages” – says Lux managing director Marcus Gessler with a view to the missing cooks.
Image: Marcus Gessler
When he bills the chef for more than 30 euros per hour for an event, according to the restaurateur, customers ask critically. “But people pay twice or even three times as much for a craftsman.” Because of the low wages, a lot of specialist staff has migrated to tourist strongholds such as Switzerland, Austria or Sylt in recent years, where earnings are often twice as high.
Craftsmen earn more
The greater the need, the more likely it is to pay via tariff. But the comparison between the industries alone shows the differences in terms of collective income: According to the NRW tariff register, a carpenter earns 3235 euros, a master painter 4671 euros and a foreman in the construction industry 4755 euros per month.
A chef, on the other hand, receives a monthly tariff of 2249 euros and a chef 3476 euros. No wonder, then, that more than 17,000 chefs were sought nationwide in August. There are 46,000 vacancies in the entire catering industry.
In addition, many in the catering industry are employed as mini-jobbers. A decisive disadvantage in the lockdown, because “mini jobbers could not be kept on short-time work, unlike, for example, employees subject to social insurance contributions in the electrical industry,” said Ludwig Christian from the Federal Employment Agency. It was already clear during the crisis that they would be needed again later.
Gastronomy has become insecure
In Cologne, too, people now read “rest day” more often than before the Corona period. Kai Schultz, from the Kölsch pub “Ex -vertretung” is the spokesman for the restaurateurs in the old town. He himself was able to fully open his terrace again. But he is also taking a day off, as he currently only employs 40 percent of the staff he had before the lockdown. He, too, was able to keep his core workforce. But many of his seasonal workers have now found jobs in retail or warehouse workers.
They would not come back because the industry had become too insecure for many. The employees are rethinking, says Schultz. “So far, catering has been a crisis-proof job. At the moment, however, there is no reliability.”