Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in Georgia. Based on data from September 1st, 2018, 71,574 people are employed in the tourism sector, which is 4,353 more people (6.5%) than the number from the previous year. In the tourism industry, employment market research was commissioned by the Ministry of Economy and 1,000 enterprises were surveyed.
Based around economic activities, the division of employment within the industry is categorized in the following way:
– Food service – 26,645 (37%)
– Transport – 26,645 (37%)
– Accommodation – 18,235 (26%)
– Tourist service – 3,528 (5%)
7% of the surveyed enterprises employ foreign citizens, which comes to a total 1,661 people. Among those 72% (1,189 people) are working in Tbilisi, and 28% (472 people)are working in different regions of Georgia. It is worth noting that 60% of foreign citizens are in management positions.
In the tourism industry, the highest paid position is in management and equates to 1,525 GEL on average, the lowest paid positions go to cooks who on average earn 340 GEL. In addition, the average salary varies between Tbilisi and different regions of the country.
With regard to the professions in demand within the sector, according to the research between the period of September 1st, 2017 and September 1st, 2018, 884 (11%) enterprises had made 4,449 vacancy announcements. 58% of the vacancies came from small enterprises and 18% and 24% came from large and medium enterprises respectively.
Vacancies are divided in the following way:
– Food service – 48%
– Accommodation – 33%
– Transport – 14%
– Tourist service – 5%
The vast majority of the announced vacancies were for the following professional fields: customer service and sales – 58.9%; beginner qualified workforce – 16.5%; office assistant – 12%; manager – 6.7%.
Among the existing vacancies, the highest salaries were offered in hotel management (1,333 GEL), followed by restaurant manager (661 GEL) and customer service manager (600 GEL).
The hardest positions to fill are the following: chefs, waiters, and guides. There were also problems recorded in regarding work in hotels, retail, and other service management positions when it came to filling positions. The most cited reasons for the issues regarding the fulfillment of the vacant positions were: low qualifications of the applicants, lack of experience, and high salary expectations by the applicant.
Tourist agencies mostly use the internet (45%) and private recruiting agencies (28%) to find human resources; food service enterprises use private contacts (47%) and the internet (16); accommodation services use the internet (32%) and private contacts (23%), as well as private recruiting agencies (22%); transport uses the internet (27%) and private contacts (36%).
The primary method for assessing applicants is interviews (52%) and work trial (26%), whereas 12% of enterprises use tests.
The research showed that not all enterprises use specific measures to overcome the problem of filling the vacancies, however those that do use specific measures are likely to search more actively (28%), temporarily hire mediators (25.6%) or use existing employees to work overtime (23.4%).
According to the research, 4% of the companies (317 companies) plan to increase their number of employees and the majority of these companies 37% (188 companies) are representatives from the food services field.
