Germany's most popular themed amusement park, EuropaPark, has a major staffing problem. EuropaPark director Roland Mack sees the reasons for the staff shortage particularly in attitudes toward work and, as he believes, the excessively high demands of the younger generation of job applicants.

Namely, the coronavirus pandemic hit Europapark hard as well: the crisis years left not only a lack of revenue, but also a large gap in the number of employees at the theme park located in Rust in Baden-Württemberg. The new beginning is evidently difficult for CEO Roland Mack, as there seems to be a lack of new staff. But what are the reasons for this? Poor pay or unattractive working hours?

– Neither one nor the other, Mack is certain.

In an interview with Basler Zeitung, the theme park manager clearly criticized the personal attitude of younger candidates.

– There are 25-year-olds who want to work only three days a week. Their whole lives are still ahead of them, they could become something here, take on responsibility, build a career, Mack believes and reveals what candidates most often ask for in their job applications.

– Work-life balance is often requested in applications, followed by refusal of weekend shifts and demands for a home office. A uniform regulation for every employee is already a problem in my company. If weekends are our busiest days in the park, I cannot go on vacation while my employees are working hard. I also have to be there. Too often, pay is no longer decisive. Although Europapark pays “far above the minimum wage,” money alone does not seem to be enough, says Mack.

Even the construction of a new hotel will not begin as planned due to a lack of workers. But if Germans will not, foreigners will, because many business owners are bringing in workers from abroad.

– We had to take workers from abroad because the demands of young people in Germany are unbelievable! Fortunately, we found good people from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, says the director of Europapark.

Refugees from Ukraine have also been hired. However, it remains to be seen whether these measures are sufficient to cover the number of employees, which has now reached several hundred workers.

Source: fenix-magazin.de