A little over a month from Easter, the start of the season on the Languedoc coast, CVs are rare on restaurant owners’ desks. This year again, professionals are afraid of facing a shortage of seasonal workers. In the former Languedoc-Roussillon, 50,000 positions of cooks, heads of rank or waiters are yet to be able.
Jacques Mestre, restaurateur at La Grande-Motte (Hérault) and president of the Union of trades and hotel industries (Umih) in Occitania, is angry. For years he has been harping on elected officials and state services, he sighs, that solutions must be put in place as quickly as possible to facilitate the hiring of seasonal workers. Especially in terms of housing. In seaside resorts, “a studio sometimes costs 450 euros… The week! If rentals are eating up the pay of people who get high for work, it’s not worth it. They will stay at home, and they will be right. We have to be able to offer seasonal workers university rooms, which are free in the summer. Or that we set up Algeco”, he confides to 20 minutes.
Transport, an obstacle for seasonal workers
And transport is the same thing. Access to the coast, where the need for labor is greatest in spring and summer, if you don’t have a vehicle, is very complicated. “In big cities, like Montpellier, it’s fine,” he notes. But in Palavas-les-Flots, Carnon or La Grande-Motte, the tramway stops at Pérols! “, scolds Jacques Mestre.
Virginie no longer has this hassle of hiring, as the gunshot approaches. This restaurateur, who responded to the call for testimonials from 20 minutes on the shortage of seasonal workers, decided to work alone, rather than hiring, she testifies. It’s “less stress, with people who don’t want to work, but just want to get paid,” she says. Less stress, with people still sick at times. Less stress, with people constantly running late. So obviously she has “a lot more work to do.” “I do 14 hours without a break, and on Sundays I do the cleaning, shopping and accounting. In return, I have no salaries to pay, and I earn a better living”, even if it has, of course, “removed seats and there is no longer any service. Customers adapt.
“Skilled labour, you have to pay for it”
Armand, 51, spent 10 years in the hotel industry in the Hérault. He stopped because of “the working conditions, the monstrous amplitudes, the salary which did not follow (the hourly minimum wage), he lists. In Carnon, La Grande-Motte, Palavas-les-Flots, Grau-du-Roi, etc. It was always the same conditions. The bosses take advantage of this, and line their pockets. If they want skilled labour, they have to pay for it”.
Matt, a former employee, has set up his own project. To his former bosses, this Héraultais who “is not afraid to work hours” criticizes “a pay of m…, hours of m…, a rhythm of life of m…”. It is “physical work”, and the “customers are not always pleasant and understanding”, he assures.
Restaurants forced to close on certain days
For Jacques Mestre, it is not the conditions offered by restaurateurs that are at issue in this shortage of seasonal workers. Since the end of the Covid-19 crisis, he and his colleagues have regularly increased salaries (by several hundred euros, sometimes), reduced hours, and multiplied benefits, he says. Not to mention the tips and meals provided by the establishments. The other problem, notes the president of Umih, is that since the various confinements, the relationship to work has changed. And some people prefer to work remotely.
If seasonal workers do not flock to restaurants, Jacques Mestre fears that his colleagues, like him, will have to remove tables or close their establishments on certain days. “For my part, I did it last year, confides the Grand-Mottois. I closed one or two days a week. And that, at a time of product and energy inflation, is unthinkable, he notes. “Tell me how much we make! We will have to raise the prices. Have client salaries increased? No. So they will come less than before. “An endless cycle, laments the restorer.