Personal service workers: skills opportunities and challenges (2023 update)

Summary

Personal service workers account for around 4 per cent of all employment in the EU. Their largest share is employed in the Accommodation and food services industry, which is one of the mainstays of the EU economy. 
Personal services workers provide various forms of personal services that relate to, among others, travel, housekeeping, catering and hospitality, animal care, companionship and other services of a personal nature such as supervising other workers. They are occupied in hotels, airports, and travel agencies, they work in restaurants and cafes, while they are also employed in public and private organisations to maintain premises. Jobs within this group include cooks, waiters and waitresses, travel attendants, stewards, and guides, hairdressers, and building supervisors. 

Key facts

• Around 8.4 million people were employed as personal service workers in 2022, which accounts for 4 per cent of total EU employment. 
• Between 2019 and 2020, during which the EU experienced economic lockdowns, about 950 thousand personal service jobs were lost. By the end of 2022, employment had declined even more and was 1.2 million workers short of pre-Covid-19 level.
• Overall between 2012 and 2022 overall employment slightly declined. Over the same period, employment across all occupations in the EU increased by almost eight per cent.
• Across sectors, most personal service workers – 42 per cent in 2021 - are employed in the Accommodation and food service activities sector.
• Nearly two thirds of personal service workers have attained a qualification level of ISCED 3 and 4 in 2021, equivalent to the education level achieved after completing upper secondary education. This is not forecast to change much over the period to 2035. However, an upskilling is forecast to take place as the share high-qualified workers is expected to double while that of low-qualified workers is to reduce markedly. 
• More than half of personal service workers are women. In 2021,only 40 per cent of personal service workers were men. 
• The employment of personal service workers is projected to slightly increase between 2022 and 2035.
• By 2035 about 10.5 million people are projected to be working as personal service workers. This underestimates the true level of employment demand. An estimated 5.4 million people will be needed to replace those who are expected to leave the occupation - mainly as a result of retirement – in addition to the projected growth of an additional 700 thousand people. In other words, between 2022 and 2035 an estimated 6.1 million job openings will need to be filled. 
• The take-up of new technologies – including those facilitating service automation in sectors like hospitality and the food industry – will drive changes in the future skillsets of personal service workers. The same holds for measures in the European Green Deal such as the Circular Economy Action Plan. Important targets for circularity in food production and treatment of food waste cannot be achieved without the involvement of personal service workers.
   

Employment and job demand

Employment trends for personal service workers were very similar to all service and sales workers in the years preceding the Covid-19 pandemic. Personal service workers were hit by the social distancing measures particularly hard, and their employment declined the most in 2021 when overall employment was generally recovering. 2022 brought the turnaround, with 10 per cent year-to-year growth. 

Figure 1: Year-to-year employment change for personal service workers (2013-2022)

Source: European Labour Force Survey. Employed persons by detailed occupation (ISCO-08 two-digit level) [LFSA_EGAI2D__custom_7778289]. Own calculations.

A quarter of personal service workers are engaged as waiters and bartenders who serve food and beverages in commercial dining and drinking places, clubs, institutions and canteens, on board ships and passenger trains.

About a quarter of personal service workers are engaged as hairdressers, beauticians and related workers. These workers are engaged with tasks such as cutting and dressing hair, and giving beauty treatments, while they also give other kinds of treatment to individuals to improve their appearance.

In total, 22 per cent of personal service workers are engaged as cooks. People employed in these jobs are responsible for planning, organising, preparing and cooking meals in various places such as hotels, restaurants, transportation means, as well as in public premises (e.g., schools). They frequently work under the supervision of chefs.

One out of five personal service workers are engaged as building and housekeeping supervisors, who coordinate, schedule and supervise the work of cleaners and other housekeeping staff in hotels, offices, apartments, and private dwellings.

Another 6 per cent of personal service workers are engaged as other personal services workers. These workers include animal caretakers and groomers, fortune tellers, driving trainers, and providers of embalming and funeral services.

A small share (4 per cent) of personal service workers are engaged as travel attendants, conductors and guides. These provide various personal services related to travelling, such as on-board services and escorting individuals and groups on travel tours. Over time the share of employment accounted for by most of these three occupations has remained more or less stable. The share of waiters and bartenders reduced to 25 per cent in 2021. Over the same period, the shares of hairdressers and building supervisors increased by about 4 percentage points each.

Figure 2: Employment in personal service worker jobs (in %)

Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.

Waiters, bartenders and cooks have the majority of OJAs in this occupation. share more than half of the personal service labour market as reported by OJAs. Hairdressers and beauticians, who are more likely to work as self-employed, have a much smaller share of OJAs as compared to their employment share. 

For more details on skills demand and job openings for this occupation,  please access the Cedefop’s Skills OVATE tool.

Figure 3: Online job advertisements for personal service workers (2022, in %)

Source: Skills in Online Job Advertisements indicator based on Cedefop’s Skills OVATE. Own calculations. Note: Online job advertisements are by definition not equivalent to job vacancies. See Beręsewicz (2021) or Napierala et al. (2022).

The vast majority of personal service workers (two thirds in 2021) are employed in the Accommodation and food service activities and the other service activities sectors (see Figure 4). Over time, these two sectors are closing on each other, with the employment share of personal service workers declining in the former and rising in the latter.  The Human health and social work activities and the Education sector are the other sectors with more than 5 per cent of personal service workers. 

Figure 4: The top sectors employing personal service workers (in %)

Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.

As regards the share of personal service workers within sectoral employment, these workers appear to be a significant part of the workforce in the Accommodation and food service activities sector. In 2021, they were the largest occupation within the sector, accounting for 40 per cent of its employment.

The share of employment in each country varies from 6 per cent in Cyprus to less than 3 per cent in Poland  (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Personal service workers as a share of overall country employment (2021, in %)

Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.  Note: Data for CY, EE, IS, LV and LU have lower reliability because of the small sample size. LFS data for MT are not available. 

More than half of the workforce is comprised of women (60 per cent in 2021). Personal service workers seem to suffer from ageing and low influx of young people -  the share of younger workers is declining over time (Figure 6). 

Figure 6: Personal service workforce by age (in %)

Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.

The majority of personal service workers are employed in the tourism industry. They are thus prone to some forms of atypical employment. In countries where tourism is an integral part of the economy (e.g., Greece, Italy, and Spain) workers such as cooks and waiters are often hired as seasonal workers. To some extent, this is reflected in the percentage of workers employed on temporary contracts (see Figure 7). 

Figure 7: Contract and hiring trends for personal service workers (in %)

Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.

Skill needs and future trends

Heavy loads and hard work conditions are part of day-to-day personal service workers. Typically front-line workers, they deal with clients constantly. Corresponding skills are requested. Not many of them report the use of skills in handling digital devices and software. This is also reflected in training needs, with training on job-related skills higher than digital ones, although still overall need for education is lower than all occupations average. This labour marker has lower job security and satisfied workers compared to all occupations average.

Figure 8: Skills, training needs and job perception of personal service workers (in %)

Source: European Skills and Jobs Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.  Unless stated otherwise, it is a share of people reporting that a task/skill is part of their job.
*Always or often
** Share of workers reporting these needs to a great or moderate extent.

Cedefop’s Skills forecast provides a detailed view of the future demand for personal service workers. Overall, employment for personal service workers is expected to increase by twice as much as that of overall employment over the period 2022 to 2035. Compared to 2021, this means that there will be about 2.9 million more personal service workers, which will more than cover the loss of employment during the pandemic (when employment fell by 2.1 million workers between 2019 and 2021).

Future employment growth will be realised in most countries, but this volume will vary by country. Figure 9 compares the employment growth experienced over the relatively recent past to that projected to take place in the future. Employment in 12 countries grew in the past decade and it is forecast to do so in the next decade as well. Ireland, Lithuania, Luxemburg, and Norway are among those with the highest past and expected future growths, while especially Slovenia and  Bulgaria represent the opposite trend.

Figure 9: Past and expected future employment trend of  personal service workers 

Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Cedefop Skills Forecast. Note: Data for CY, EE, IS, LV and LU have lower reliability because of the small sample size. LFS data for MT are not available. 

New job creation is, however, not the main driver behind job demand. Most job openings are a result of people leaving them for other opportunities, or those leaving the labour market completely (retirements; parent leave and such). This replacement demand is much more substantial, and in the case of the personal service workers it exceeds the new job creation13 times, as it is estimated at 5.4 million (Figure 10). Meeting this future requirement may be challenging given the level of labour shortages currently reported for personal service workers in the Accommodation and food services sector (see below). 

Overall, when expansion demand is added to replacement demand, an estimated 6 million job openings for personal service workers will need to be filled between 2022 and 2035.

Figure 10: Future job openings for personal service workers (000s)

Source: Future job openings indicator based on the Cedefop Skills Forecast. Own calculations.

About two thirds (64 per cent) of personal service workers held medium-level qualifications in 2021 (i.e. at ISCED levels 3 or 4). This is not projected to change much by 2035. However, the share of workers with low levels of qualification (ISCED level 2 or lower) is projected to fall from 22 per cent to 13 per cent, while the share of highly qualified workers (i.e. those qualified at ISCED level 5 and over) is projected to increase from 13 per cent to 24 per cent.

Looking forward

Irrespective of the sector they are occupied, personal service workers are experiencing changes in their everyday tasks and new skills to cope with these. Personal services that are often based on personal contact and require soft skills were vulnerable to lockdowns and other confinement measures issued during the Covid-19 pandemic. Their post-pandemic recovery will continue to be shaped by technological developments and the green transition.

• According to the latest Cedefop data, nearly half of personal service workers work in the Accommodation and food services sector, which has yet to recover fully from the pandemic. Existing staff shortages that were attenuated post-pandemic increase the pressure for filling vacant positions. In a recent report by the European Labour Authority, cooks were indicated as a shortage occupation by nine EU countries and as a surplus occupation in 7 countries. In the summer of 2022, around 20 per cent of jobs required in Greek hotels remained vacant, and a similar situation took place in the hospitality sector in Spain. Rising energy and food costs brought about by Russia’s war in Ukraine labour pose another challenge to the sustainable development of the tourism sector (OECD, 2022).
• During the pandemic personal service workers across sectors had to quickly adjust to new occupational safety and health standards and proceed working under constantly shifting rules. A study done in Portugal concluded that hospitality workers had become more confident of their soft and hard skills, while also more aware of the need to constantly develop them. Investment in developing skills, such as digital and communication competences, could be a remedy for alleviating sectoral staff shortages (Magalhaes, 2022).
• Technological developments impact the future job prospects for various jobs within this occupation. Personal service workers will have to adapt to working with different technologies. Some of their routine work processes that do not require transversal skills are more likely to be automated. For example, the hotel industry uses technology for operational/managerial purposes and guest-oriented services in the room (Ristova & Dimitrov, 2019). Technology has multifaceted impacts also on the food and accommodation sector, ranging from robots and artificial intelligence to service automation. All these require adequate training so that personal service workers avoid obsolescence and gain enough competences to co-work with technology in their everyday tasks.  
• The rise of the platform (gig) economy and platform work in service sectors has increased the importance of subcontracting and self-employment (Jakosuo, 2019). These forms of work are characterized by task-based and irregular jobs. The pandemic accelerated these dynamics in many sectors such as hospitality (Baum et al, 2020). To cope with platformisation and self-employment perspectives, personal service workers will need to develop soft skills like entrepreneurship and management in addition to technical competences.
• The hospitality sector is a large energy consumer and waste generator, which makes it important for achieving the goals of the European Green Deal. The green transition of European tourism involves securing sustainability knowledge and competences and moving towards carbon-neutral mobility, circular tourism, and sustainable consumption. In addition, the resilience of the European tourism ecosystem relies on its ability to adapt to global changes, supporting accessibility, and ensuring work quality by improving skills in the sector. The Commission’s transition pathway for tourism stretches that meeting sectoral skill needs is crucial for achieving  sustainability goals. Local provision of training is necessary for recognising new business opportunities, implementation of resource efficiency measures, and use of renewables. A report by the Next Tourism Generation Alliance lists competence needs related to sustainability in hospitality. These include promoting sustainable forms of transport and environmentally friendly activities and products, and managing waste, sewage, recycling and composting activities.
• Especially for personal service workers, and depending on the job role, skills need to be adjusted to the needs of specific user groups, such as the elderly and people with disabilities. Considering the demographic projections for the next decades, personal service workers will have to work increasingly with and for the ageing population in Europe. For instance,  in line with the European Care Strategy, the future workforce will need up- and re-skilling of soft skills such as communication, empathy and cooperation when increasingly working with the elderly. In addition, adapting to age-friendly tourism requires overcoming technical barriers such as wheelchair accessibility and other amenities in hotels, and the design of senior-oriented travel packages. Personal service workers will need to be trained to accommodate, for example, tailored sightseeing tours, caring tasks, and diets for the elderly.
• Apart from cooks, other jobs within this occupation appear to be in surplus rather than in shortage. In particular, the report by the European Labour Authority found surpluses for booth waiters and hairdressers across several Member States. These workers comprise nearly half of the personal service employment.

Equipping personal service workers with updated and new skills is important for achieving the goals of the green transition and a more age-friendly accommodation sector. This will require increased efforts to re-design vocational education and training (VET), as most personal service workers (63 per cent in 2019 and 2020 according to Cedefop data) possess a vocational qualification.

In sectors such as Accommodation and food services, overcoming current labour shortages depend on the ability to offer quality and secure jobs and opportunities for re- and up-skilling. development is a crucial factor in talent retention. This will require efforts to make sure that initial vocational education and training (IVET) proves to be attractive to would-be personal service workers, who account for nearly half of the sector. The Pact for Skills for the Tourism sector was launched in early 2022 to promote joint actions in skills training and worker retention in the industry. To remain globally competitive, the European tourism industry needs to invest in re/upskilling its workforce in green, digital and social skills. Examples of innovative programmes that accommodate newly demanded skills (such as the 2-year associate degree in the box below) can prove important for attracting students to this occupation. 

Considering the European lifelong learning framework, personal service workers can enhance their skillset through apprenticeships or micro-credentials. Apprenticeships allow to combine learning in school with paid work and training in a company, which leads to a diploma or certification. They are particularly important for this occupational group. Jobs like cooks and hospitality assistants are frequently relying on such schemes to promote faster integration into the labour market.  Micro-credentials are certified short-term learning experiences which offer a flexible way to acquire specific skills or knowledge. Many of these are online training courses, thus offering opportunities for “anywhere anytime” training. This is convenient for personal service workers occupied on a seasonal basis, such as in the food and hospitality sectors (see the box below for an example).

Transversal upskilling could also be achieved using the material developed by various EU-funded projects that relate to the jobs occupied by personal service workers. For example, the Erasmus+ Life Climate Smart Chefs project involves European chefs in the promotion of EU Climate Policy and the Farm to Fork Strategy with the aim of popularising the sustainable gastronomy industry. Also, the Digital Skills Evaluation Tool and Support (DIGISETS) project aims to address the mismatch between existing digital skill levels and needed skill profiles in the tourism and retail sectors. It involves experienced organisations and training providers from 4 European countries and will result in an evaluation toolkit for organisations. This will involve broad hard and soft digital skills and will be designed for education professionals working with employees in tourism and retail sector. In its most recent report, the programme has already identified digital skill gaps in the tourism and retail sectors of these 4 countries.

Another way to improve employability in sectors that are important for personal service workers such as hospitality, is by improving working conditions. Hospitality trade unions recommend improving working conditions and pay, ensuring regular and predictable working time, and enabling a decent work-life balance as some of the main strategies to address staff shortages in hospitality.

How to cite this publication:

Cedefop (2023). Personal service workers: skills opportunities and challenges. Skills intelligence data insight.

Further reading

Baum, T., Mooney, S.K.K., Robinson, R.N.S., & Solnet, D. (2020). Covid-19’s impact on the hospitality workforce – new crisis or amplification of the norm?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 32, 2813-2829. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJCHM-04-2020-0314/full/html

Beręsewicz, M. and Pater, R. (2021). Inferring job vacancies from online job advertisements, Luxembourg: Publications Office, 2021. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-statistical-working-papers/-/ks-tc-20-008

Bichler, B.F., Petry, T., & Peters, M. (2021). ‘We did everything we could’: how employees’ made sense of COVID-19 in the tourism and hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism, 25, 3766-3782. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13683500.2021.1985974

Denona Bogovic, N., & Grdic, Z. S. (2020). Transitioning to a Green Economy – Possible Effects on the Croatian Economy. Sustainability, 12., 9342. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9342

DIGISETS (2020). Summary of national surveys on identifying gaps in digital skills for service workers in tourism and retail sectors. Report.

European Commission (2020a). A new Circular Economy Action Plan: For a cleaner and more competitive Europe. COM(2020) 98 final.

European Commission (2020b). A Farm to Fork Strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system. COM(2020) 381 final.

European Commission (2022). Communication on the European care strategy. COM(2022) 440 final.

European Labour Authority (2021). Report on labour shortages and surpluses.

Jakosuo, K. (2019). Digitalisation and platform economy – disruption in service sector’’, conference paper, 14th Intrenational Strategic Management Conference, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330686093_Digitalisation_And_Platform_Economy_-_Disruption_In_Service_Sector

Lopes, A.S., Sargento, A., & Carreira, P. (2021). Vulnerability to COVID-19 unemployment in the Portuguese tourism and hospitality industry’. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 33, 1850-1869. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJCHM-11-2020-1345/full/html

Magalhaes, C., Araujo, A., & Andres-Marques, M.I. (2022). How Do Hospitality Workers Perceive Their Work Skills before and after the Lockdown Imposed by the COVID-19 Pandemic?. Social Sciences, 11, 588. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/12/588

Napierala, J.; Kvetan, V. and Branka, J. (2022). Assessing the representativeness of online job advertisements. Luxembourg: Publications Office. Cedefop working paper, No 17. http://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/807500

Next Tourism Generation Alliance.  Sustainability and “green” skills in hospitality – how to make a sexy concept work? July 22, 2019.

OECD (2022). OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2022, Paris: OECD Publishing.

Ristova, C., Dimitrov, N. 2019, Digitalization in the hospitality industry: trends that might shape the next stay of guests, in International Journal of Information, Business and Management, Vol. 11(3), pp. 144-154, https://ijins.umsida.ac.id/index.php/ijins/article/view/670