Education and Training Requirements and Demand for Labour at Austrian Hotels and Restaurants

For Austrian hotels and restaurants, the education and training requirements and the demand for labour concentrate mostly on traditional occupations and job areas. Hotels and restaurants offer an above-average number of occupations for younger workers: 80 percent of the workers in the operations surveyed within the frame of this study are younger than 45. Most of the key jobs in hotels are vested in persons who have completed an apprenticeship or secondary school. More than half of those working in hotels and restaurants are paid in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement. The on-line survey found that all of the occupations reviewed have problems recruiting suitable workers. A majority of the enterprises intends to employ exactly those age cohorts (younger than 45) who according to demographic projections will be fewer in number in the future. Model calculations find a possible shortage of workers in the long term (from 2020 on). What hotels and restaurants in Austria are looking for are workers who are fluent in many languages and characterised by innovative and autonomous work habits. In order to overcome staff shortages, businesses try chiefly to boost productivity and develop non-seasonal or year-round offers. Other measures are to employ school leavers, mobilise those returning to the labour market, create worker pools and hire older staff and people from abroad.