Every September, thousands of young hospitality professionals across Italy close out a long season of service that often started back in May and only now is catching its breath. This year, a noticeable share of those seasonal workers made a different choice once the season ended. They didn't come back.
Federalberghi, Fipe and the national bilateral tourism body EBNT published their eighteenth report on Italy's tourism labor market in late September, built from 2025 INPS employment records. One figure stood out immediately: resignations across the tourism sector rose 65 percent, and the share of seasonal workers who simply didn't return for the next contract climbed from 22.8 percent to 26.9 percent.
The same research places that shift inside a larger picture. Italy's tertiary sector is short roughly 275,000 workers this year, more than 200,000 of them in services and tourism specifically, with that gap projected to widen to 470,000 by 2035 if nothing changes. Perhaps the most telling number is this: seven out of ten open roles go unfilled simply because too few candidates apply, not because the candidates who do apply lack the right skills.
A Generational Shift, Not a Talent Problem
Talk to hoteliers in regions built on seasonal tourism, and the pattern gets clearer. Positions in the kitchen, at the front desk and on night shifts are consistently the hardest to fill, not because Italy has stopped producing capable hospitality professionals, but because today's graduates are weighing weekend and shift heavy seasonal contracts against other options, and increasingly choosing differently. A four or five month seasonal job, however well paid, competes poorly against a year round role with a real career path attached.
That is worth sitting with, because it reframes the whole conversation. Italy's istituto alberghiero system still trains some of the most technically skilled young chefs, sommeliers and hospitality managers anywhere, through years of hands on labs and real placements. The output has not slowed. What has changed is where those graduates are willing to spend it.
A Wider Map for the Same Talent
This is exactly the shift we see up close every day. The hospitality candidates who come through our recruitment team are, overwhelmingly, graduates of that same Italian training pipeline, and they are not leaving the profession, they are widening the map. Many are looking at hotel groups and restaurant employers abroad, especially in the US, who already offer the structured schedules, defined growth tracks and longer term contracts that a seasonal Italian role often cannot provide. Our work is matching that talent with the employers ready to actually use it well, and walking both sides through the visa process that makes the match real instead of theoretical.
None of this is a story about Italy running out of hospitality talent. It is a story about that talent having more options than it used to, and about which employers, in Italy or abroad, build roles good enough to earn a yes from someone who could easily choose otherwise.
Data referenced from the Federalberghi, Fipe and EBNT Osservatorio sul mercato del lavoro nel turismo (eighteenth report) and reporting by Confcommercio and CentroPagina.
The talent never left Italian hospitality. It just started asking better questions about where to go next.