Nearly a year after his election as head of the Union des Métiers et des Industries de l'Hôtellerie ("Union of Hotel Trades and Industries", UMIH), the hotel and catering employers' trade union with 35,000 members, the media-savvy chef, who runs the Sur-Mesure restaurant at the Parisian hotel Le Mandarin Oriental, reflects on the sector's prospects.
With the energy crisis and a 25% increase in bills, a large number of businesses are finding themselves in survival mode. At the end of September, the number of bankruptcies in the accommodation-restaurant sector had risen by 56.7% year-on-year, the highest increase of any business sector. A total of 7,150 establishments were forced to cease trading, equivalent to around 20 closures a day.
In other words, businesses don't have the means to invest in insulating their buildings or installing solar panels. At the UMIH, we have a team working with our members on this energy transition, and the Agence de la Transition Ecologique [ADEME, Agency for Environmental Transition] is helping us finance studies on the subject. We also try to educate our members and integrate the environmental dimension into professional training.
Yes, 200,000 permanent jobs are unfilled, with seasonal peaks of up to 300,000. Every year, 100,000 people retire. We're about to enter the Olympic Games period without having solved the problem of human resources. And then there's the problem of housing and that of remuneration. When you choose an apprentice, train him and six months later pay him €1,800 or €2,000 gross, of which he only has €1,400 net left, he rightly retorts that it's impossible for him to find accommodation and that from the 10th of the month, it's complicated. Why is it that in France, for the past 40 years, we've been unable to emancipate ourselves through work? This is a political issue.
Yes, these are interesting examples. Airbnb is helping to take housing away from us in Paris, on the Atlantic coast and elsewhere. We're letting the phenomenon develop, supporting it with tax breaks. We're led to believe that it offers additional income, when in fact a majority of renters are professionals. We were among the first to express concern, but ministers continue to praise the business. We're told, "Put all that out of your minds for a while, because we need to spend the Olympics in peace."
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