Deregulation threatening economic development and the free market. That is the situation that the shortage, or absence, of residential housing in the South is causing: a serious problem in the tourism sector, especially for hoteliers, when it comes to filling jobs to function normally.
Easter and summer, for example, which predict good jobs, at least as good as last year, face the dark clouds of finding qualified employees who, in addition, are compensated for living in the region without having to leave. to a caravan or, worse, to a tent.
Some of the main hotel chains in Spain announced yesterday that they are looking for around 7,200 workers to cover the coming months. Meliá established the figure at 2,500 employees; Barceló and Iberostar, at 1,500, and Palladium, at 3,200. “But there is no accommodation, affordable housing for workers,” so they are incentivizing hiring including room and board or rental contracts. The CEO of another chain, Miguel Villarroya, of Spring Hotels, for his part, admitted that “indeed, hiring staff is quite complicated due to the housing shortage.” “The explanation,” he added, “is that during the pandemic a significant portion of workers left and now returning is very complicated due to rental prices.” “It is not our case,” he added, because we have a long-standing and established staff base, who have their homes. But it is a fairly general problem of the southern tourism industry.”
The provincial hotel association, Ashotel, already warned in 2022 of the lack of housing for workers in the sector and, this same year, has insisted that, between 2015 and 2023, vacation housing spaces have grown by 60%. Exactly the same period in which rents doubled in the South. Ashotel also recalled that hotels throughout the Canary Islands employ 77,000 people, a figure incomparable to that of tourist rentals.
This organization recalled that the accommodation sector not only creates employment, but also leaves, via taxes, 3.4 billion euros in the Islands, while wondering how many jobs and income vacation homes leave, for its part.
