Romanian tourism companies lack 50,000 employees, ask for better promotion of the country as a tourist destination

Representatives of Romanian tourism associations have signaled that they have a shortage of 50,000 workers. The workforce crisis and the poor promotion of Romania as a tourist destination are the main brakes in the industry’s development.

The National Association of Travel Agencies (ANAT), the Romanian Hospitality Industry Federation (FIHR), the Federation of Romanian Tourism Employers Federation (FPTR) and the Romanian Hospitality and Hospitality Organization (HORA) demand that the authorities take urgent measures to limit the strength of the negative impact of the workforce shortage in tourism.

The main problems raised by the representatives of the four associations were the the uncertain status of the Destination Management Organizations (OMD) and the poor promotion of Romania as a tourist destination, the lack of communication and the public-private partnerships, the lack of tourism workforce caused by the mass depopulation of the country and the legislation that currently does not allow the adoption of viable solutions to limit its effects.

Apart from the numerical problem, the industry also faces the problem of quality, namely the education and qualifications of those working in the industry.

”We often think only of promotion, but we also have the problem of labor. The workforce also needs education, recognition of diplomas etc. There have been great efforts made for promotion for years, and Bucharest’s effort to promote the capital is done through public-private partnerships, the ideas exist. The irony is that there is money, but we are not able to be on the same wavelength for implementation. The only success story we consider to be viable is a partnership with the authorities,” Razvan Pirjol, FIHR council member said.

Workforce missing

In the context of the massive depopulation of Romania, with around 4 million Romanians already working abroad and thousands of them leaving the country every day, the hospitality industry faces an unprecedented workforce shortage.

According to estimates by the representatives of tourism associations, a total of 50,000 people willing to work would be absorbed immediately by tourism, a sector in which more than 450,000 people work in Romania today.

”The tourism industry, like construction, is strongly affected by the lack of workforce. We have 10,000 people we can attract, and 4 million who have left. We are facing a paradox: we have customers, the industry works, the concepts of restaurants work, but we have no one to serve the customers,” Dragos Petrescu, president of HORA, explains.

One of the solutions the representatives have proposed to the government is supporting the transfer from rural areas to the urban environment through the possibility to deduct the accommodation, transport and meals expenses, without these being associated with the salary incomes. This would encourage tourism players to invest in relocating rural labor with low local employment opportunities to business centers in the urban area. If the relocation measure is not enough to cover the labor shortage, the representatives of the tourism associations say that the only chance for the development of tourism and investments in Romania remains the import of labor from the extra-community space.

”For one year, the shortage of employees was felt aggressively. We went to the officials, but there is no culture of the relationship between us and the authorities. We had to be invited to a discussion. We are affected in many ways: lower our services, because if you do not have someone to hire, you hire anyone, 10 percent of the seaside units do not open this year due to lack of staff. It is impossible to demand performance if I know if the employee leaves, I have no one to work with,” said Mohammad Murad, FPTR president.

Proposals by tourism associations

In this context, representatives of tourism associations are asking the authorities for immediate measures to allow the import of labor:

increasing the contingent of foreign workers – currently there are only 10,000 labor permits, insufficient to serve the need for the labor force in the economy;
eliminating preferential treatment for non-EU workers in terms of minimum guaranteed wages. Currently, wages are set at the level of the average salary for non-EU employees, compared to just the minimum wage for Romanians;
facilitating procedures and shortening the time required to obtain work permits and equivalence of studies.

According to evaluations made by industry organizations, the rapid adoption of the proposed measures could generate considerable revenues to the state budget. Without taking into account the economic revenues through the development of tourist infrastructure and attracting more tourists to Romania, they estimate budget revenues of over EUR 500 million, coming exclusively from the salaries paid to the 50,000 new employees needed in tourism .

Representatives of hospitality associations have also noted the need for partnership with authorities in terms of professional education for industry. They recall the need to support the industry by rapidly equating diplomas obtained abroad, which would encourage the repatriation and return of several qualified Romanians abroad, as well as dual education programs and the re-evaluation of the vocational education directions in line with industry demands.

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