Lack of workers on North Coast

Tobi Hughes·
Madeira News

The lack of labor is exacerbated in the municipalities of Porto Moniz and Santana, o the North Coast. 

In Porto Moniz, several professionals in the sector regret not having staff to meet the increased tourist demand, and see things only getting worse as the summer begins. 

Gastronómica de Santana Festival was also canceled due to a lack of workers, according to the mayor Dinarte Fernandes. Restaurants are struggling to find people to work, and it’s not possible to keep a restaurant open and have a space at the gastronomic Festival.

 

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Tobi Hughes

11 Responses

  1. Maybe they should try offering more than €4 an hour. This was the hourly rate at the Saccharum in Calheta were paying their waiting staff this last weekend. I know this because I asked one really nice person.

  3. This is the result of several.factors. You have the youth who leave the island at the first available opportunity to find better economic opportunities elsewhere and that is perfectly understandable. Then you have the more mature folks who really have no incentive to work as the government is really over generous with their handouts. I do agree that 4 euros an hour for part time work like that is way too low. Even if it were full time its still less than 800 Euro per month.
    I think its not a case of not enough workers, its a case of not enough workers who are prepared to work for anything less than 60 euro per day. A few months back I was offering 70 euro per day ‘plus meals and still they would come only when they wanted to. Most of the time they wouldn’t pitch at all.
    Perhaps the time has come for the regional government to do two things: increase the minimum hourly rate and secondly to tighten the purse strings when it comes to social handouts.
    You simply cant have a situation where major events have to be cancelled because the local population won’t work. This would be disastrous for the tourist industry which, lets face it, is the lifeblood of the island.

    1. If the local tourist industry can only offer such low wages in the face of the rocketing cost of living, it’s unsustainable. The local population will simply vote with their feet. There’s already a diminishing population in the north of the island.

    2. I find 4 Euros an hour hard to believe.
      Two comments, in March, at one of “our” restaurants, we were introduced to, “Our two new members of staff”, a young man and young lady, fresh out of school, if not the egg. Neither knew to carry the tray with their hand under the tray. This was a Wednesday, Thursday the young lady failed to turn up. Friday the young man was a no show.
      We use four restaurants, three of those restaurants now close one day a week, purely because of the difficulty of finding staff who are prepared to work. One of those restaurants will seat 120 covers plus, a day, any day. The proprietor is prepared to forgo a days profits to look after his customers, preferring to close rather than employing staff who don’t want to work. A phrase used by both owners and existing staff of the restaurants I use. All his staff, all personable, professional and ever cheerful, have been with him for a long time. A sign he is paying the correct rate and looking after them.

      1. 100% agree with George. When my folks owned a restuarant many years ago they were constantly complaining about the same thing, people not wanting to work despite what you pay them. I really don’t know what he answer is; perhaps go to Ukraine and bring back some people willing to work?

  4. Totally agree about the need to increase wages and especially where resturants want you only to work antisocial hours or even two short shifts split over a twelve hour or even longer period? There is also the question of access to and from these works, not everyone lives next door to the workplace or can afford to run a car or even a moped, or accept the additional hours to their working day caused by having to use the very irregular bus services? Last time I checked the government so called “over generous” benefits totalled around 250 euros a month, hardly a huge sum or any great disincentive to work! The problem all too often is totally useless untrained managers who are in the places they are because of who they know and what what they know. Lack of empathy for your staffs difficulties and the idea you can hire and fire people at a moments notice has been for too long the default position. Well the boot is on the other foot now and maybe a change in the employers attitudes would go a long way to resolving the so say lack of enthusiasm to work. How many Brits would work say 8am to 10am then return at 5pm until 8pm or (in contravention of EU employment laws) be happy if expected to work say until 9 or even 10pm six days a week for just 750 euros?

  5. Another major point I forgot to mention in my previous comment was that for years now the regional government has not spent any money on tourist infrastructure in the north. Take the caves at Sao Vicente which were a major drawcard, have now been closed for over 2 years without any urgent need to reopen them. A cynical viewpoint would say that the government had purposefully spent vast amounts of money on the southern tourist attractions to satisfy their pals economic needs in this region. It goes without saying that if you have any marketable skills you will migrate to the south where there is more robust economic activity. I agree with the previous comment that the north is quickly becoming a ghost region and I can’t help wondering if that is exactly what the government wants: to keep all the tourists in the south.

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