Spanish Hotels and Restaurants Turn to Moroccan Workers Amid Labor Shortage

The restaurant El Árbol Tapas, on the beach of La Barrosa, currently has five young Moroccan employees: Hamid, Ilias, Noma, Abdu and Luali. Aged between 20 and 30, these young people were hired as kitchen assistants thanks to the Association of Solidarity Families. "They value their work much more and are well treated because they have seen what happens elsewhere," explains the owner of the premises, José Luis García, 42, originally from Chiclana (Cádiz).

Created in 2019, the establishment started its activities with only 5 people and now has 25 people, including a dozen foreigners from Morocco, Algeria or Brazil. The hotelier encourages business leaders to take advantage of the agreement signed between NGOs and Horeca to recruit Moroccan labor, even if there are always people "who are not in order... Here, they know that my wife and I treat them well, that we are people worthy of trust."

José Luis Garcia specifies that in his establishment, "everyone earns from 1,700 euros", stressing that in the future, it will be necessary "to work less, four days a week, and pay less, while allowing employees to have more free time. Instead of paying 1,700 euros, we could pay 1,200 and give three days off." "I have people like that on weekends all year round and they earn 1,000 euros for 30 hours a week," he develops.

According to the president of the Association of Solidarity Families, Juan Molina, some 45 young minors who have come of age have been hired in various localities, from Cádiz to Jerez, passing through Chiclana. "We could have placed more," he regrets, noting that they had to deal with the problem of lack of hotel training for these young people and offers that did not take into account the housing, the prices of which are high in summer. These young people earn between 1,300 and 1,800 euros, Molina assures, hoping to increase the number of contracts in the coming years.