The hospitality industry is starting to flourish again. At least, restaurants have been quite in demand in recent weeks. Thank goodness. They have been through a tough period. It's up to consumers to do their part by stopping by regularly.

I am one of those consumers and last weekend I was enjoying myself at my favorite restaurant. Remarkably, the place was not full. When I asked how this could be, I received a surprising answer. The guests are there, there is just a dire shortage of catering staff. Those have been sent home in the harsh corona times and have since found work elsewhere. So let's resort to a temp agency, either Dutch or foreign.

In the transportation industry, I also see this more and more. There is a desperate shortage of drivers who are willing to make international trips over several days. So people are looking further and further across the border for suitable drivers through foreign transport companies and foreign employment agencies. These agencies employ both EU nationals and so-called "third country nationals". Often on the basis of bilateral treaties between the two countries. Therefore, many Ukrainian drivers work for Polish employment agencies and Turkish drivers for German employment agencies. In this way, it is quite easy for non-EU citizens to start working within the EU. Once they work legally in one of the EU member states, provided they meet the other requirements and conditions, they may also be employed in other member states, according to an EU Court of Justice ruling.

This ruling led to an increasing number of temporary employment agencies being set up in countries such as Poland and Germany with the goal of employing drivers within transportation companies throughout Europe. Due to the Mobility Package, which in turn made it a lot harder for Eastern European transport companies to offer their services in Western Europe, Eastern European temporary employment agencies seemed to be the 'egg of Columbus' to get around the strict rules. However, the same EU Court of Justice recently put an end to that "dream scenario" by ruling in a case brought by Bulgarian staffing agency Team Power Europe (TPE). That applied for a relatively favorable Bulgarian social security scheme for its temporary work in Europe for recruited temporary workers. That was refused by the Bulgarian Social Security Agency. TPE went to the Court, but also fell flat there. The reality was that these temporary workers were almost exclusively employed by companies in Germany. TPE therefore did not qualify for the, usually advantageous, social security system of the member state where this agency is located.

This ruling will have huge implications, especially for Eastern European employment agencies that send drivers to countries other than the one in which they are based. The Mobility Package already largely eliminated the wage advantage for those companies. With this ruling, the social security benefit will also disappear. If you work almost exclusively in Western Europe, then as an Eastern European company you really have no business there. Eastern European staffing agencies, but also transport companies, which generally send out or work in Western Europe, will now have a very tough time. Companies that are needed to do something about the distressing driver shortage in Western Europe. And so the sector will soon have a new challenge.

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