Hotels in Europe hire staff with no experience or résumé, as unfilled vacancies hobble hospitality sector’s rebound from the coronavirus pandemic

Europe’s tourist industry is paying the price for years of low wages and neglect of staff development. Staff laid off during the pandemic found better paid work

Accor hotels are hiring staff with no experience. Spain’s bars and restaurants are short 200,000 staff, with some only able to open in the evening or at weekends

Reading Time:3 minutes

The headquarters of Accor, Europe’s largest hotel group, which has begun recruiting staff with no experience or CV as it, like other hospitality businesess, struggles to fill vacancies. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:45pm, 5 Jul 2022

Top European hotel chains are hiring workers without experience or even a résumé. Executives admit years of underpaying staff have come back to bite them, leaving hotels unable to meet post-pandemic travel demand.

Thousands of workers left the hospitality industry when international travel shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many chose not to return, finding better paid employment elsewhere and leaving hoteliers facing a desperate shortage.

Europe’s largest hotelier, Accor, is running trial initiatives to recruit people who haven’t previously worked in the industry, chief executive Sebastien Bazin said at the recent Qatar Economic Forum.

Accor, which operates brands such as Mercure, ibis and Fairmont in more than 110 countries, needs 35,000 workers globally, he said.

Sebastien Bazin, chief executive officer of Accor, speaks at the Qatar Economic Forum in June. “We’ve been blind, we’ve been not paying attention to a lot of people and probably underpaying some people,” he admits. Photo: Bloomberg

“We tried in Lyons and Bordeaux [France] 10 days ago and this weekend we’re having people interviewed with no résumé, no prior job experience and they are hired within 24 hours,” Bazin said.