Not only restaurants, delivery services, airports, handicraft businesses and hotels are struggling with a shortage of staff. There is also a lack of assistants in the supermarket, at the bakery and at the hairdresser’s. The situation is tense. In the summer months, the opening times must therefore also be adjusted. FOCUS Online says what you need to know now.
“We have to adjust our opening times,” says the entrance to a Hieber branch in Binzen. Due to the summer holidays and a high level of illness, the supermarket chain currently has to close at 1 p.m. every Wednesday. A meltdown for the company, which loses sales as a result.
Not an isolated case. Edeka branches in Lappersdorf also have to close earlier. Specifically, every Tuesday it ends at 1 p.m. Here, too, there is a lack of staff.
As FOCUS Online learned from readers, a Penny branch in Himmelreich near Salzburg had to reduce its opening hours in mid-July so that working people could no longer shop there in the evening. The company was only available from 7 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Employees were absent due to illness and holidays.
The meat and bread counters of individual Rewe, Edeka and Hit branches also have to close earlier. The situation is currently tense, as the “Lebensmittel Zeitung” from the industry comments in its current issue (paid content). “The shortage of staff at the service counters is hitting us with full force,” explains Matthias Zwingel, Rewe multi-branch retailer from Bavaria.
Apparently there is also a massive exodus of staff in retail. Discounters had already raised the minimum wage early on to prevent an imminent wave of layoffs. “The fluctuation is huge,” says a purchasing manager of a large German discounter in an interview with FOCUS Online. There is a lack of helping forces, especially in logistics.
The background is apparently the increased cost of living. “Big discounters like Lidl and Aldi pay above-average money, but in the end even a good salary doesn’t get you very far in a big city.”
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All supermarkets and discounters in Germany are currently having problems getting staff. However, there is primarily a lack of specialist salespeople at bread, meat, cheese or fish counters.
On average, it takes several months before a position can be filled. According to the LZ, the Globus press office calls the search for skilled workers “a challenge”, which, depending on the region, is sometimes more or sometimes less big. The possibility that the sales counters will have to close earlier because no staff are available cannot be completely ruled out.
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In a background discussion, full-range suppliers such as Rewe and Edeka explain that it is only about skilled workers who work in butchers or bread counters, for example.
These sales areas could actually use shorter opening hours to accommodate bottlenecks. Consumers would then continue to get cheese, meat, fish or other fresh produce. They would then have to resort to packaged meat or bread.
