Reports: Thousands of positions in Greece’s booming tourism sector remain vacant

Forecasts for another record-breaking season in Greece’s all-important tourism sector in 2023 have expectedly increased demand for employees but also revealed that roughly 80,000 positions – by conservative estimates – remain vacant.

Even the last-minute “shift” of more than 9,200 temporary guest workers to the food-and-beverage and hospitality sectors only dented this “gap”. Nevertheless, the number of such transfers for the current two-year period is nearly four times greater than in previous two-year period, when only 2,811 such transfers were approved.

Overall, the relevant labor ministry has approved the import of nearly 148,000 workers from third countries (mostly from Egypt, Bangladesh) via a state-to-state agreements, and primarily for the agriculture sector and industry.

The greatest demand in the tourism sector remains for kitchen help, dishwashers, porters, maids, gardeners and all types of cleaners.

A recent study by the Greek Tourism Confederation’s (SETE) research arm, INSETE, also mentions thousands of vacant positions for waitpersons, assistant servers and receptionists, as well as barristas and bartenders and even technical staff.