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Europe
The Economist July 9th 2022
Charlemagne Nofl y zone
A summer of travel chaos is a glimpse of a future with few spare workers
W
here did all the workers go? The question feels ubiquitous in Europe. From French cafés to Irish construction crews, Czech car factories and Italian farms, employers once assumed cheap staff could be summoned at will. Now the toilers seem to have simply vanished. Companies are grumbling, though rarely as loudly as Parisians waiting for an oblivious garçon to arrive with their drinks. In no sector is the lack of staff so glaring as in air tra vel. For weeks tourists at some of Europe’s biggest airports have faced serpentine queues to catch their fl ights, assuming those fl ights have not been cancelled due to the shortage of hands. Go ing on a relaxing holiday has never seemed so stressful. In this economy, everybody in Europe can fi nd work; as a result, Europe isn’t working. After two years of pandemic uncertainty, tourism is back (mi nus a few Asian visitors). For Europe, which attracts half the world’s international travellers, that ought to be a boon. And yet the headlines are grim. Staff shortages at airports and airlines have prompted a surge in fl ight cancellations. In June, just as re sorts and city centres ought to have been fi lling up, carriers in Brit ain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain cancelled nearly 8,000 fl ights, roughly three times the fi gure in 2019, according to Ciri um, a consultancy. Each scrapped journey gives rise to a planeload of sob stories: Alicante stag parties postponed, Tuscan family get aways forsaken. American air travel has problems too, but nothing like the bedlam that has engulfed parts of Europe. Those whose fl ights were not cancelled might wish they had been. Waiting times at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport ran to six hours on some days in late May, prompting klm, the Dutch fl ag carrier, to suspend bookings from its main hub for four days. Giv en the chaos behind the scenes, checking in luggage has become an act of faith. At Paris’s main airport, nearly half of all bags that were meant to follow their owners to their destinations on July 2nd went astray. Passengers have been warned by unions they may never be reunited with their swimming trunks. A member of the Cypriot parliament stuck at Frankfurt airport for two days decried the “thirdworld conditions” there in much the same tone some Germans use when they travel to the Mediterranean. Some of the havoc is down to tourism rebounding unexpected
ly fast. Deprived of holidays for years, vacationers are “revenge travelling”, depleting what remains of their pandemicera stimu lus cheques. War on the fringes of the continent might have been expected to crimp demand. Instead it sent the euro tanking (to near parity with the American dollar), making Greek tavernas and Baltic beaches irresistible. Airports should have been prepared. Forecasting the number of travellers on a given day is not unreasonably complicated, given that they have bought tickets well beforehand. But aviation bosses have complained for months of the diffi culty of hiring staff . Ramping up operations takes time: airport security must be vetted and cabin crew trained (though you wouldn’t know it at some air lines). Then came the strikes. Travel workers walking off the job in recent weeks included Scandinavian pilots, German security staff , French airport fi remen, Dutch cleaners, Belgian cabin crew and Italian airtraffi c controllers. In part the strikes refl ect workers demanding that pay keep up with high tourist loads and soaring infl ation. But airports’ diffi culties are not merely the result of local labour troubles. Far be yond the tarmac, European workers currently have the upper hand. Unemployment in the euro area, at 6.6%, is at its lowest since the single currency was launched two decades ago. Some places have all but run out of workers: Germany’s jobless rate is just 2.8%. It would once have fi xed a shortage of hands by import ing willing throngs of Poles or Bulgarians. That no longer works: Poles and Bulgarians now fi nd plenty of good jobs at home. Ger many is issuing work permits to Turks to handle its luggage in stead. Whatever reluctance it might have felt to let in more noneu migrants has been set aside. Europe is now employing nearly everyone within its borders who is willing and able to work. Some might suspect that generous welfare states are letting a lot of Europeans shirk. The talk last year was of a “Great Resigna tion” of the previously employed. Yet this does not seem to be the case. A higher percentage of 15 to 64yearolds in the euro area have jobs than before lockdowns. The eu’s labour force, unlike Britain’s or America’s, is now bigger than before the pandemic, notes Jessica Hinds of Capital Economics. Many have better op tions than the jobs once reserved for them. “Everyone’s asking, where have they all gone?” pondered Tim Clark, the boss of Emir ates airline, according to Bloomberg. “And the answer is always: Amazon.” It turns out that handling ecommerce packages for de cent pay while listening to podcasts beats arriving at 5am to ask passengers whether they have packed any liquids in their carry on. Or serving impatient Parisians their cocktails, for that matter. Europe is healing Given its rigid labour rules and hohum growth in recent decades, Europe has not often had to face the problem of having too many jobs. It is a problem nonetheless. The dramas visible at airports are also unfolding in care homes, hotels and other places that need a lot of unskilled staff . They simply get less attention. Some workers may see salaries rise, though many fi rms that rely on cheap labour say they cannot aff ord to pay more. Meanwhile, the unions who typically bargain for permanent wage bumps may worry that do ing so now might feed infl ation. Perhaps the labour market will regain some slack as Europe’s economy slows down. Soaring energy prices have soured the mood in recent weeks, as has a resurgence of covid. That would hardly be good news, except for hardup employers—and those looking to catch a bit of downtime on a farfl ung beach. n
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