Lack of seasonal workforce is something that affects not just Montenegro but Croatia as well. This year, Croatia has been approved the import of 15,000 foreign workers, while the estimations say that the country is going to be affected by the shortage of up to 60,000 workers in the next few years.
Founder of the Horwath HTL consulting house for the tourism and hospitality industry, Miroslav Dragičević, told CdM that the workforce issue in tourism and hospitality represents a global problem, as it’s about insufficiently attractive kind of recruitment.
He said: “The so-called grey economy (working simultaneously at home and in a company) is gradually disappearing. That wouldn’t be a problem if there were enough workforce for the hospitality industry on the traditional market of seasonal workforce, that is, on the territory of former Yugoslavia. Some structural solutions will be needed no matter whether they are related to the salary increase and better work conditions or stronger and more liberal intake of workforce from other markets.”
As for Croatia, he added, “it is estimated that it would lack at least 50,000-60,000 seasonal workers from abroad in the next five to six years.”
The problem of labor market in tourism and hospitality along the Adriatic Coast is becoming not just an operative but a strategic problem as well, according to Mr Dragičević.
