Germany’s Fair Job Hotels has forged a strategic partnership with recruitment specialist GP Care Solutions to address the country’s acute hospitality labour shortage by recruiting trained professionals from the Philippines.
The collaboration positions the 115-member hotel network to access one of the world’s most established talent pipelines for hospitality workers. Fair Job Hotels CEO Katharina Darisse and GP Care Solutions CEO Frank-Uwe Schneider travelled to Manila in early 2025 to formalise the arrangement and assess recruitment operations firsthand.
During the visit, the delegation met with senior German diplomatic and business representatives including Dr David Klebs, Economic Attaché at the German Embassy in Manila, and Christopher Zimmer, CEO of the German-Philippine Chamber of Commerce. Discussions also took place with LifeLinks, part of PTC Holdings, one of the Philippines’ most established workforce placement organisations.
The partnership addresses a structural challenge facing German hospitality. According to German labour market data, skilled hospitality positions remain among the most difficult to fill, with unfilled vacancy rates significantly above other sectors. Germany’s hotel industry continues to operate below optimal staffing levels despite recording 496.1 million overnight stays in 2024 – surpassing pre-pandemic figures.
“With the development of recruitment partnerships domestically and internationally, Fair Job Hotels is pooling its resources and preparing for a time when the shortage of workers will intensify,” Darisse said.
The Philippines has long been a primary source of hospitality talent globally. Approximately 2.19 million Filipinos worked abroad in 2024, according to Philippine Statistics Authority data, with the country recognised for its strong English proficiency, customer service orientation, and robust hospitality education system.
GP Care Solutions operates training facilities in Subic Bay, where candidates complete five to six months of intensive German language instruction and cultural preparation before deployment. The programme operates on an employer-pays model, meaning no placement fees are charged to workers.
“Through our classroom-based teaching, we prepare people very well for working and living in Germany. The exchange with European teachers also makes it easier for them to get started,” Schneider explained.
Fair Job Hotels membership requires adherence to workplace standards encompassing fair pay, management transparency and employee development. Member hotels consistently outperform industry benchmarks for employer satisfaction, achieving an average 4.18 rating on employer review platform kununu compared with the hospitality sector average of 3.4.
The association emphasises sustainable integration as central to its international recruitment approach. Darisse noted that understanding the needs and expectations of international recruits is essential for successful long-term placements.
“When recruiting workers from third countries, our focus is clearly on sustainable integration,” she said. “We want to help them find their feet professionally and personally in their new working environment.”
Employers using GP Care Solutions conduct multiple video interviews with candidates prior to arrival in Germany, enabling relationship-building and expectation alignment before deployment commences.
GP Care Solutions joins Fair Job Hotels’ existing network of recruitment partners including ATRACT, worcay, CMMB and Konen & Lorenzen. The expanded recruitment infrastructure provides member hotels with vetted pathways to both domestic and international talent pools.
The initiative reflects broader European hospitality industry trends. The World Travel & Tourism Council projects a global hospitality workforce shortfall of 8.6 million workers by 2035, with European employers increasingly looking beyond domestic labour markets to meet operational requirements.
For Germany’s hospitality sector, where tourism contributed €484 billion to the national economy in 2024 and supports 6.5 million jobs, resolving workforce constraints remains a strategic priority. Fair Job Hotels represents more than 15,000 employees and 1,500 trainees across its member properties spanning Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The Philippines partnership signals the association’s recognition that addressing structural labour shortages requires systematic international recruitment frameworks alongside domestic workforce development.
