July 1st, 2021 - The pandemic has irreversibly changed the labor market, especially in the hospitality industry. A search for waiters in Croatia, and diligent and loyal employees is tough to find as the season approaches. 

Caterers will remember 2020 and 2021 well. 24 sata reports, a year and a half after the start of the pandemic, it is clear that they are a vulnerable group to whom the crisis has brought great financial damage. Unconditionally closed, with only a slight shift in coffee to go, caterers have generally entered a cash deficit. Although things have been slowly returning to normal over the last month, caterers are facing new difficulties. In addition to the still current restrictions, there are problems with tax burdens and labor shortages, especially quality ones.

The season, they say, is ahead of them, and the labor market is almost empty. The biggest problem for caterers is the lack of total workforce needed to operate one restaurant, mostly the staff directly in charge of serving guests. Most waiters have moved to hotel complexes to do the season because they are guaranteed a salary there for several months, and many have found other jobs during the pandemic.

With easing measures, everything returns to normal at first glance, but the shortage of labor primarily felt in continental Croatia is growing. As a result, demand in the tourism sector is high, and people have gone en masse to the coast and islands, hoping to make some money in tourism. 

The pandemic has stopped freedom of movement, including the free labor market and the "import" of labor. Costs have been further increased due to Covid tests, and accommodation for workers has become a very high item in the budget. There are also fees for work permits, food, transportation, and transportation of staff to work. If the business tax were reduced for caterers, there would be more left for salaries, which would attract our people to stay in the sector and not look for seasonal jobs even outside their profession.

Employees are found through social networks and internal acquaintances, various employment portals, and private referrals. There are also various competitions for students, and there are those who come alone. They are hard to find and even harder to keep. Most of them fail while on probation, and among the key characteristics they seek are will, motivation, and interest in work.

Many employees ask for unrealistically high salaries because they know that there is a labor shortage, and at the same time, they do not have good enough qualifications for that. As a result, there are often situations in which workers are late and sluggish, and many do not speak foreign languages ​​or are rude.

"Of course, an employee should have qualifications for a certain job, but that is not crucial for us because we invest a lot of time, knowledge, and money to teach a quality person even better work. We motivate them with additional stimuli for good work. This should become the standard in all sectors anyway, because only in this way can the quality of work be increased.

We are interested in a combination of human and professional qualities. It is important to us that our employees are good people with a cheerful spirit, and on the other hand, dedicated to work and diligent. Also, contact with guests is important to us; they are not just one in a row but people to whom we dedicate ourselves." said Saša Žerajić, owner of the Program Bar. 

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As Morski writes on the 25th of March, 2019, the specialised portal Gastroposao, which was launched last year, and the City of Pula are continuing their cooperation this year, too.

The portal's aim is to tackle the problem of the lack of quality seasonal workers in hospitality and tourism, which is one of the biggest problems Croatian tourism has faced in recent years.

Following the good results of last year's pilot cooperation between the Gastroposao portal and the City of Pula, when during May and June, Pula's small and medium entrepreneurs in the fields of hospitality and tourism were greatly helped in terms of finding a quality workforce, this year the project is also including Istria, Rovinj and Medulin, as well as the town of Novalja on the island of Pag.

The City of Pula is the first city to recognise the need to create much more simple and exact measures of employment assistance in the field of hospitality and tourism, and has decided that all restaurants from the City of Pula can use incentives in the amount of 90 percent to finance their search for a quality workforce by announcing their search on Gastroposao.

''We're witnessing just how challenging it is to find a quality workforce today, especially in tourism. The tourist season is knocking at the front door and our intention is to quickly and easily "connect" the supply and demand on the labour market and this is why this project is important. If we continue to want to develop and make steps with our [tourist] offer, then it's crucial to have a high-quality workforce,'' said Pula's mayor, Boris Miletić.

Pula will provide direct assistance to all those in the tourism and hospitality sector before the tourist season kicks off, allowing them to easily and quickly find high quality seasonal workers from all over Croatia and beyond, without having to pay extra cash, and with minimal amounts of paperwork.

This means that those looking for staff only pay 100 kuna in costs when publishing an ad on Gastroposao, while the rest will be subsidised by their local government. This approach helps those in the hospitality and tourism industry because a great many small and medium-sized businesses are struggling to be able to get hold of the necessary resources needed for such moves otherwise. The only condition they must fulfil is that they are beneficiaries of measures in the areas of the cities of Pula, Rovinj and Novalja, or in the municipality of Medulin.

It's important to mention that Gastroposao cuts out the middle man and allows employer and employee to communicate directly to each other without any third parties. Employees don't need to write out any job applications and resumes, and they only need to fill in a prepared questionnaire on the Gastroposao portal which has been tailored to the professional terms and written language rules that chefs, waiters and other employees in such fields understand.

Otherwise, the Gastroposao project is co-funded under the IPA Local Employment Promotion Initiative - phase II of the European Social Fund, in the amount of 178,938.00 euro. Gastroposao is the only specialist portal in the Republic of Croatia for employment assistance in the tourism and hospitality sector.

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