Some Dublin hotels are now offering new staff cheap accommodation within a hotel in a bid to encourage them to move to Ireland from abroad.
Many hospitality businesses have been experiencing staffing issues since reopening, as a result of many staff leaving Dublin or indeed Ireland during lockdown.
Meanwhile, the soaring rental and housing prices across Ireland has meant many people can’t find an affordable place to live when they do want to start working here.
The Business Post over the weekend reported that hundreds of hotel workers are being put up in subsidised accommodation by employers keen to ensure sufficient staffing at their properties.
Nicky Logue, General Manager with the InterContinental Hotel in Dublin, told The Pat Kenny Show his own hotel chain has introduced the measure in a bid to attract staff.
The InterContinental is part of the MHL Collection, which operates 12 hotels across Ireland - including the Westin, Hilton, Spencer and Morgan hotels in the capital.
Mr Logue said: “The pandemic for the last 18 months or longer has caused a lot of challenges for our industry. We were fortunate up to 2019 to be doing exceptionally well.
“Then when COVID hit a lot of our great team members returned to their home countries.
"Many are probably nervous and have remained at home… so unfortunately we have lost a lot of great people out of the industry.”
He said staffing has been “tight” since reopening, but workers who are willing to return can’t find affordable accommodation
He explained: “What we’ve done for the moment for our Dublin-based properties… one of our four-star hotels is accommodating staff.
“It’s an initiative we came up with as a relatively short-term measure, to provide accommodation at a reduced rate.
“The idea is we offer a six-month solution - that gives them time to settle into Dublin and Ireland, and hopefully within that time they might be able to look at a house-share.”
'It has worked'
Staff do need to pay for the accommodation, but Nicky said it’s “quite a knockdown price” - around 30-35% of what they’d be paying if they were renting a two-bedroom apartment.
Hotel food and other facilities are also available to staff who are staying there.
Mr Logue said the key thing is the system has worked for them.
He told Pat: “We have over 100 staff living at the moment. We’re still considerably off our [business] levels of 2019, but certainly weekends in Dublin have got stronger.”
Like other hospitality businesses, a lot of the InterContinental’s upcoming banqueting, meeting and events business has been lost due to the recent restrictions and surge in COVID cases.
Mr Logue is hopeful that business will start to return to normal from April 2022, and that measures such as subsidised accommodation will help retain staff for now.
However, he’d also like to see the Government's employment wage subsidy scheme extended to get the industry over a challenging winter.
