The employers say that many workers have already covered a maximum of 80 extra hours per year in July. “We are not pirates and we need qualified professionals,” they underline
The limit of 80 extra hours per year sharpens the lack of staff in the hospitality industry. Employers warn that many workers in the sector have arrived in mid-July with the annual overtime cap covered, which requires finding qualified professionals in the middle of the campaign to serve customers.
We are not pirates and we need qualified professionals, so we do not understand that there is such a low ceiling in such a seasonal sector, when there are many workers who want to make more hours in the campaign to be able to go more economically quiet in the winter months,
Explains the president of the Hospitality and Tourism Association of Castellón (Ashotur), Carlos Escorihuela.
It should be remembered that last March, the obligation for all companies to register their employees’ workday on a daily basis entered into force throughout Spain. The measure came after years of demand by the Labor Inspectorate, which saw in the mandatory registration the only way to control fraud in overtime.
The limit of 80 extra hours per year is not a novelty, but the registration is. In this regard, it should be remembered that the Workers’ Statute already marked and regulates the need for employers to register overtime for their workers.
However, the inspectors complained that since there was no control of the daily workday it was impossible to calculate whether the workers did overtime not recognized by the company.
On the other hand, the president of the Introducing Castellón Tourist Product Club and tourism entrepreneur, Javier Gallego, affirms that the control in the workers’ time records will result in the improvement of the professionalization of the sector. ” Times have changed in all economic sectors, not only in the hospitality industry, and we must change an image that does not correspond to the reality of today’s hospitality industry,” said Gallego.
The registration control is taking hours, thus, a problem regarding the job creation is concerned. “It is true that employment in the sector has increased, at least with the data we have from June, but it is also true that last month the occupation in the province of Castellón increased thanks to the loyalty of the national tourist”, he argued the president of the Introducing Castellón Tourist Product Club.
The problem remains to find qualified personnel. “The businessmen would prefer to reach agreements with the workers we have in the companies, who know the sector, to be able to cover the extra hours at the time that there is a need to resort to external staff, which is very difficult to find,” said the president. of the Hospitality and Tourism Association of Castellón.
To do this, one of the solutions proposed by Ashour is the possibility of extending the annual overtime calculation. “That professionals could do more hours, obviously and of course paid and voluntarily, by those workers who, for whatever needs, need more income at a given time,” Escorihuela explained.
The president of Ashotur recalls that ” the service is the image of the sector, which has no other way out than to give excellent attention to be able to retain an increasingly demanding tourist and who has before him a wider range of offer.”
