Greece’s tourism boom collides with a worker shortage: the country attracts ever more visitors, but finds it increasingly hard to find people to welcome them
For several seasons now, Greece has confirmed its status as one of Europe’s most sought-after destinations, but behind record revenues and strong growth lies a problem that is becoming ever more visible: tourism is growing faster than the domestic workforce able to sustain it. Hotels, restaurants, bars, travel agencies and related services, ahead of each new season, look for thousands of waiters, chefs, housekeepers, receptionists, lifeguards and support staff, and some employers openly admit that the labour market can no longer keep pace with the tempo of demand. In such circumstances, Greece is relying more and more on workers from third countries, yet the experiences of other European states show that migration alone is not a sufficient solution unless working conditions, housing and the long-term retention of employees are improved at the same time.
According to research by the Greek institute INSETE, which operates within the Greek Tourism Confederation, tourism had enormous weight for the national economy in 2024. Its direct contribution reached 30.2 billion euros, while the total, direct and indirect contribution was estimated at 80.1 billion euros, or 33.7 percent of Greek GDP. At the same time, according to the same analysis, tourism retained a key role in employment, especially in accommodation and hospitality, where the third quarter of 2024 brought historically high employment. Yet that very figure reveals the sector’s paradox: record employment did not eliminate the shortage of people, but merely showed how much demand had grown.
Record revenues, but also record pressure on the labour market
Data from the Bank of Greece confirm that the tourism momentum was not short-lived. After a very strong 2024, Greece in 2025, according to central bank data, achieved a new record in travel revenues, with more than 23.6 billion euros. In other words, the country managed simultaneously to attract a large number of visitors and increase spending per trip, which is an important signal for the government and the tourism sector that Greek tourism does not rely only on the volume of arrivals, but also on growth in the value of the service. However, the more successful the tourist season is, the more visible the pressure on the labour force becomes in the most sought-after regions, from Athens and Thessaloniki to Crete, Rhodes, Mykonos and Santorini.
In practice, this means that the search for seasonal workers is no longer conducted only between employers and the unemployed, but also among companies themselves, which poach workers from one another by offering slightly higher wages or more favourable accommodation. This process further raises operating costs, but does not guarantee system stability because the problem is merely shifted from one employer to another. For visitors, this can mean slower service, shorter opening hours at some establishments or a reduced quality of stay, especially on islands where the seasonal surge is strongest and where the question of accommodation on the Greek islands is important not only for guests but also for workers who need to live there for months.
How large is the real shortage of people
Different estimates of the size of the shortage appear in the public sphere, but all move in the same direction: it is a matter of tens of thousands of workers. In May 2025, the British Guardian, citing sector representatives and trade unions, stated that hospitality and catering were short of about 80,000 workers. Estimates of up to 90,000 unfilled positions also appear in the Greek and international business press, which corresponds to the scale of the problem affecting the entire chain of tourism services. Even more worrying is the long-term estimate of the World Travel & Tourism Council, according to which Greece could by 2035 be among the countries with the largest shortage of tourism labour relative to the sector’s needs.
The figures alone do not tell the whole story. Behind them stand several structural reasons. The first is the legacy of the pandemic, when thousands of employees left hospitality and tourism and redirected themselves to other sectors. The second is seasonality: many work intensively for several months and then enter a period of uncertainty and weaker social protection. The third is demographic decline and population ageing, which affect not only Greece but the whole of southern Europe. The fourth is emigration: in previous years a large number of Greeks, especially younger and better educated ones, left to work in wealthier European Union countries. When high living costs in tourist centres, especially on islands, are added to that, it becomes clear why domestic workers are increasingly choosing more stable, year-round jobs.
Why many Greeks do not want to work in tourism under the current conditions
Representatives of employees and some analysts have for some time been warning that the problem is not only in the number of available people, but also in the quality of the jobs being offered. Work in tourism often means long shifts, work on weekends and holidays, seasonal contracts, uncertainty between two seasons and expensive housing in destinations where rents have risen sharply because of tourist demand. For young people who can choose between an office job in a larger city and seasonal work on an island, the decision is increasingly clear. Employers therefore no longer compete only with other hotels and restaurants, but with all other sectors of the economy that offer more predictable working hours and a longer-term sense of security.
Part of the problem is also linked to the transformation of the Greek economy itself. The European Commission and the Bank of Greece note in their assessments that the country has been growing in recent years, with support from investment, construction and tourism. This means that workers who once almost automatically went into the tourism sector today have more alternatives. Tourism is no longer the only major generator of employment, and that changes the balance of power in the labour market. In such a situation, even wage growth is not always sufficient if it is not accompanied by a better standard of living, a more secure contract and a solution to the housing issue. This is precisely why in Greek destinations there is increasingly frequent mention of accommodation for seasonal workers and visitors as one of the practical bottlenecks of the entire system.
Reliance on workers from third countries
Faced with a shortage of domestic labour, Greece has in recent years opened several channels for the legal arrival of foreign workers. The focus is on bilateral agreements and quotas for workers from countries outside the European Union, among which Bangladesh, Egypt and India are mentioned most often. The European Immigration Portal states that seasonal employment in Greece relies to a great extent on bilateral arrangements, while Greek and international sources have in recent years repeatedly recorded attempts to facilitate the arrival of workers for agriculture, fisheries, construction and tourism.
Athens has meanwhile tried to act on several levels. One step was also a law that enabled the issuance of work and residence permits to a certain number of migrants who are already staying in the country and can prove employment. Associated Press reported that this was a measure intended to cover around 30,000 people and ease the shortage of unskilled labour. From an economic point of view, such a move had a clear logic: instead of keeping part of the labour force in the grey zone or outside the legal labour market, the state tried to include it in the system at a time when it urgently needed workers.
But that solution has its limitations. First, it does not automatically create a sufficient number of people with experience in hospitality and catering. Second, administrative procedures, visas and work permits still take too long relative to the rhythm of the tourist season. Third, workers who come to Greece do not necessarily stay there in the long term, especially if they assess that in western Europe they can earn more and obtain more stable conditions. In other words, Greece is competing for foreign workers on the same European market on which wealthier states also compete.
What Spain, Italy and Germany show
A comparison with other major European tourism and labour markets shows that Greece is not an exception, but it is a special case because of the strength of its dependence on tourism. Spain, for example, remains a tourism powerhouse, and the country’s Ministry of Industry and Tourism announced that in April 2025 tourism-related employment exceeded 2.9 million people, with almost 100,000 new workers compared with the previous year. In the last quarter of 2025, the number of employees in tourism activities also exceeded three million. This shows that a large market can absorb more workers than Greece, but also that employment growth does not automatically remove pressure on the sector. In Spain, alongside the labour shortage, there is increasingly frequent discussion about the quality of jobs, housing costs in tourist regions and the need for tourism to be more sustainable for the local population.
Italy has resorted to a quota system. According to information from the Italian migrant integration system and the European Immigration Portal, a total of 452,000 foreign workers are planned to enter for the period 2023–2025, and for 2025 alone 165,000 quotas were set, a large part of them intended for seasonal work. Seasonal work is precisely crucial for tourism and agriculture. However, the Italian experience shows that a formal increase in quotas is not enough if procedures remain slow, if employers find it difficult to obtain workers on time and if part of the labour force ends up in insecure forms of work. The quota model can ease pressure, but it does not solve the weaknesses of a business model that depends on a short season and low housing flexibility.
Germany is in a different position, because its problem is not only seasonal tourism but a broader shortage of skilled labour in hundreds of occupations. In 2025, the Federal Employment Agency announced that there is a shortage in 163 occupations in the country, and official German and European sources warn of the effects of population ageing and the retirement of the baby boomer generation. That is why Berlin in recent years has significantly liberalised the immigration of skilled workers through the new Skilled Immigration Act. The German example is important for Greece because it shows two things: first, migration is a necessary part of the answer when the domestic population is ageing and shrinking; second, even a strong and wealthy state cannot rely only on opening the door to foreigners without a system for recognising qualifications, integration and a long-term worker retention policy.
Migration helps, but it cannot be the only pillar
That is also the central lesson for Greece. Bringing in workers from third countries can prevent some hotels and restaurants from being left without staff in the middle of the season, but by itself it does not improve the conditions because of which domestic workers leave and foreign workers often do not stay. The International Labour Organization warns that in tourism and hospitality, seasonality, the temporary nature of jobs and limited opportunities for advancement are among the main reasons for persistent labour shortages. If the sector remains reliant on the logic of short-term replacement of people, the problem will return every year, perhaps even more strongly.
A more sustainable model requires several parallel moves. The first is increasing the attractiveness of jobs through better wages, more predictable schedules and stronger protection between two seasons. The second is investment in vocational education and specialised training, so that more workers enter the sector with a clear development perspective. The third is resolving the housing issue in the most burdened destinations, where the rental market often behaves in a way that pushes out precisely those workers without whom the tourism offer cannot function. The fourth is administrative simplification for the legal arrival of foreign workers, but with protection against exploitation and with rules that enable real integration.
Can tourism continue to grow at the same pace
From the perspective of short-term revenues, the answer is probably yes: Greece remains a strongly branded destination, has high international demand and benefits from growing interest in Mediterranean travel. But the question for the coming years is no longer only how many tourists will arrive, but whether the country can secure enough people for that growth to be sustainable without worsening working conditions and service quality. If the sector continues to develop faster than the labour market’s ability to keep up with it, then the growth in visitors will cease to be a pure advantage and become a factor of internal pressure.
In that sense, the Greek case goes beyond Greece itself. It speaks of a Europe that wants more tourists, more revenue and more growth, but at the same time is ageing, is facing worker shortages and is politically divided over migration. Therefore, the debate on seasonal workers, legal migration channels, the right to dignified work and affordable housing will be conducted ever more intensely, not only in Athens but also in Madrid, Rome and Berlin. For a country that derives a third of its economic strength from tourism, the answer to the question of who will welcome the world in the future may be just as important as the question of how much that world will spend during its holiday. And for destinations that live from the summer wave of guests, from islands to historic cities, the debate about workers can no longer be separated from the question of local life, costs and the accommodation offer in Greek destinations that must remain functional both for residents and for those who work there.
Sources:
- INSETE – report on the contribution of tourism to the Greek economy in 2024, including direct and total contribution to GDP and employment (link)
- INSETE – infographic with key indicators on the contribution of tourism to Greek GDP in 2024 (link)
- Bank of Greece – official statistics on travel revenues and tourism spending by non-residents in Greece (link)
- European Commission – economic forecast for Greece, with an emphasis on the importance of tourism for economic growth (link)
- ELSTAT – Labour Force Survey, note on seasonal oscillations in employment in Greece due to tourism (link)
- The Guardian – report from May 2025 estimating that Greek hospitality and catering lack around 80,000 workers and on the reasons for the shortage (link)
- AP News – report on the Greek law that allows a certain number of undocumented migrants to obtain work and residence permits to ease labour shortages (link)
- EU Immigration Portal – overview of rules for seasonal work in Greece, including bilateral arrangements (link)
- Spanish Ministry of Industry and Tourism – official data on tourism employment in April 2025 and growth above 2.9 million employees (link)
- Spanish Ministry of Industry and Tourism – official data on more than three million people employed in tourism in the last quarter of 2025 (link)
- Integrazione Migranti / Italian institutional portal – details of quotas for the entry of foreign workers into Italy in the period 2023–2025 (link)
- EU Immigration Portal – rules for seasonal work in Italy and explanation of the quota system (link)
- Bundesagentur für Arbeit – official analysis of the shortage of skilled labour in Germany and list of occupations with a deficit (link)
- Federal Ministry of the Interior of Germany – overview of the effects of the new Skilled Immigration Act after the first year of implementation (link)
- ILO – analysis of labour and skills shortages in tourism after the pandemic, with an emphasis on seasonality and working conditions (link)
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