Lacking tourism workers, Croatia recruits abroad
ROVINJ, Croatia—Tourists are flocking back to Croatia after the pandemic decimated its vital travel industry, except the Adriatic nation has a problem: it lacks workers to cater to the legions of visitors.
Faced with a chronic shortage of tourism workers, Croatia is recruiting people in neighboring Balkan countries and as far as Asia to fill the gap.
It is a problem that other top tourist destinations in Europe— France, Spain and Greece—have also experienced since the lifting of COVID restrictions.
But it is an issue that Croatia—famous for its idyllic coast line dotted with more than 1,000 islands and islets—already struggled with for years and has worsened since the pandemic.
The tourism industry could be short of 10,000 workers this year, according to official estimates.
“The situation is alarming,” said Stanislav Briskoski, owner of a restaurant in the tourist hotspot of Rovinj, in northern Istria peninsula, and head of Istria caterers and tourism workers guild.
Croatia is primed for a tourism rebound: it has already hosted nearly three million visitors in the first five months of the year, nearly triple the number from last year, which bodes well for the peak summer season in July and August.
The country of 3.8 million people greeted a record 21 million visitors in 2019.
“The desire for travel is big... tourists will come,” the head of the Croat tourism association, Veljko Ostojic, said.
Tourism is a major source of revenue for Croatia, accounting for one-fifth of its economy.
Ostojic said the industry could break its 2019 record, unless the war in Ukraine escalates.
But the sector needs workers. ‘Once in lifetime opportunity’ Since Croatia joined the European Union in 2013, more than 250,000 Croats have left the country seeking a better life in Germany, Austria or Ireland.
More recently, COVID lockdowns forced catering and tourism employees to look for jobs in other sectors, where they eventually stayed, having better wages and better working hours.
Last year, Croatia lifted quotas for foreign workers hailing mostly from its non-EU Balkan neighbors as well as Asia.
By June, it issued more than 51,000 work permits for foreign nationals, mostly in the construction sector, followed by catering and tourism.
It was almost double compared with the same period in 2021 and some 100,000 permits are expected to be issued this year.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to work here, in Europe,” James Pepito, a gardener at Mon Perin camping, near Rovinj, told AFP.
The 32-year-old Filipino, who worked in Oman and Qatar before arriving in Croatia two years ago, hopes to stay for another year.
“I have a good experience, that’s why I’m still here in Croatia,” he said, praising the wages, weather and good colleagues.
Pinoy 385, an employment agency for Filipinos, has found job for Pepito and some 1,700 other people, with another 500 expected to be hired by the end of the year to work as assistant cooks, maids, waiters and bakers.