Summer 2022 is upon us and for those businesses that have been closed and managed to survive for two years it’s a huge relief. Some are already open, some will be opening for Easter and the rest will be open from the 1st of May. Already though there are problems with people getting here and once they are here businesses on the island are struggling to find staff.
It’s been awful for the travel industry over the two years and I’ve seen endless news reports of airports and airlines struggling. But it seems that they’ve been caught off the mark with staff shortages. I totally understand that employing someone is a cost to a company and you don’t want to employ them to do nothing but surely they must have known that Easter would be a busy period? There are questions to be asked here as flights get cancelled and people queue for hours in security. The companies are trying to blame Covid for staff shortages but that can’t be true. It’s a lack of staff in general and I think it’s a hangover of paying people to do nothing on the furlough for the last 2 years. It’s become harder to entice them back into the labor market and with Brexit it’s become harder to employ people from the EU. Flights being cancelled is I’m sure something that airlines don’t want to do but you can bet your bottom dollar that with the price of fuel right now, the less sold and less profitable routes are the ones that have bitten the dust.
Over here we have a similar problem. I’m already hearing of queues at the airport security both arriving and leaving. The last thing we need after the last 2 years are negative headlines. The Government’s U-turn on unvaccinated Brits this week created more confusion and derision in the papers. Why are they dithering? Let the people come, let us get on with our work and the country will see the benefit. The Spanish unemployment rate is currently around 12% at just over 3 million. Here in Mallorca at the end of February when the furlough ended there were just under 85,000 unemployed. We had the largest drop in the whole of Spain in March which is encouraging from the outside but that hides a lot of the problems. Businesses are encouraged to employ Spanish people which is fine but if they don’t fit the criteria of what you need, what are you supposed to do? Employing Brits without a TIE identity card is impossible, as it is trying to get one, so a lot of people have looked at Ireland. I think both the EU and the UK need to thrash out an agreement on employing each other’s people as right now it’s clearly not working in both senses of the word. It can be done look at what they’ve done for the Ukrainian people, quite rightly by the way. It’s taken a war to show that a compromise can be found.
Pirates opens next Friday the 15th of April properly for the first time in 2 years. We are quite lucky that we have a lot of loyal and hardworking staff returning and it’s good to have them back. That’s followed by Wednesday and Friday the following week and into May. Prices are cheaper than in 2019 and the show still includes the meal and soft drinks. The doors open at 5pm with the show starting at 6pm. It finishes around 8pm so it’s not too late for the kids no matter where you live on the island. Our Reloaded show opens on Friday April 22nd at 9pm and Gringos Bingo the following Saturday April 30th at 9pm. There are lots of new things to enjoy including our outside terrace for a drink before the show and the bars inside have doubled in size to make our drinks service quicker. I’ve been lucky enough to see the rehearsals and the stuff they’re going to be doing is mind blowing believe me.
Come and pay us a visit, it will be a pleasure to welcome you all again and believe me you won’t be disappointed.
Take care everyone and enjoy your Weekend!
Richie presents the Radio One Mallorca Breakfast show Monday to Friday 07.00-10am on 93.8fm in Mallorca and 102fm in Calvià, online at www.radioonemallorca.com on mobile through their free App for IPhone & Android, The Tunein Radio App, iTunes, the Spanish TDT TV service and all smart speakers. If you can’t hear him on the radio then you’ll find him working at Pirates Adventure the islands number one night out and every now and again he may make an understudy appearance!
Follow him on Twitter @DadTaxi1 & Instagram @dad.taxi or feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com
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