Hotel sector upped salaries by 15-20% in 2022

Portugal’s hotel sector, which was blamed for tens of thousands of staff leaving it during the Covid-19 pandemic because it paid notoriously bad salaries, increased them by between 15-20% in 2022 and will up them by a further 5% this year.

This is according to Fernando Garrido, the President of the Portuguese Hotel Directors Association (ADHP) who spoke to the news agency Lusa.
“The critical state of Human Resources was an extremely hot topic in 2022 which is why we began to take notice and value the staff’s work by paying more, which was very important”, he said.
The ADHP president in the run-up to its 19th congress which takes place on the 30th and 31 March in Albufeira and at which pressing matters like salaries and staffing shortages will be on the table.
Within the logic of supply and demand — pertinent given that the chronic lack of staff was pinpointed as the most critical factor for the development of the sector which had recovered from the pandemic faster than had been expected.
Fernando Garrido said that last year the majority of hotel companies had increased either salaries or benefits by 15-20%.
“It is a policy to retain employees rather than hire because the reality was that there weren’t the resources, so the aim was to pay more to keep the staff we had”, he said.