Hotel and catering industry

More work-life balance instead of the “devil’s spiral”

Working in the hotel and catering industry is often challenging and comes at the expense of free time. There are very few weekends off.

(Bild: Jürgen Radspieler)

A new collective agreement brings improvements for employees in the hotel and catering industry. The union speaks of a milestone, but still sees room for improvement.

Employees will see an improvement on their pay slips. Those affected will receive an average of six percent more pay, with a further two percent increase in November, making a total increase of eight percent. From November, a kitchen specialist will receive 2084 euros gross.

Minimum wage of 2000 euros gross
From May 2025, all employees in the sector will receive a minimum wage of over €2000 gross. Most employees will also receive a higher vacation and Christmas bonus. In addition, the night work bonus will now apply to all those who work from midnight.

Really free on the day off
The work-life balance, which often suffers greatly in the tourism and hospitality industry, is also to be improved. In future, employees will be entitled to at least 12 Sundays off per year. The regulation of public holidays has also been improved. In previous practice, these were often regarded as rest days, which meant that employees had up to 13 days off less than employees in other sectors. The new regulation gives them up to seven additional days off.

Consequences of the permanent workload
According to Thomas Priedl, Chairman of the Works Council at Sonnentherme Lutzmannsburg, the conditions in the industry cannot be compared with other professional fields: "After all, working at night, the fact that days off at weekends are rare and many public holidays are not vacation days or are often even included as rest days is a huge burden in the long term." This is confirmed by vida national chairman Berend Tusch. The result is massive social restrictions as well as physical and mental overload. The aim of the new collective agreement was to break this "vicious spiral". "Although we have not yet reached our goal, we have been able to take significant steps in the right direction," says Tusch.