This transformation did not happen solely because of labor shortages. Over recent years, the attitudes of employers, customer expectations, the structure of the gastronomic market, and the social perception of foreigners working in the industry have all changed significantly. As a result, Polish gastronomy has begun undergoing a transition that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago – from a nearly entirely local labor market to an increasingly international one.
Staff shortages in gastronomy are not a new phenomenon. The HoReCa industry has long been one of the sectors most affected by labor deficits, especially during summer and tourist seasons. This applies both to entry-level roles such as kitchen assistants, waiters, and cleaning staff, as well as more specialized positions – chefs, sushi masters, pastry chefs, and restaurant managers.
There are several reasons for this. Hospitality remains physically and mentally demanding, built around irregular working hours, evening and weekend shifts, and high operational pressure. At the same time, wages in parts of the sector were for years relatively low compared to other industries. Younger workers increasingly choose logistics, retail, e-commerce, or office work, which offer more predictable schedules and lower physical strain.
The COVID-19 pandemic further intensified the problem. Thousands of hospitality employees left the industry and never returned. When the economy reopened, restaurants and hotels found themselves operating in a new reality – recovering demand, but far lower availability of experienced staff.
For many years, Polish gastronomy relied primarily on workers from Ukraine and Belarus. This model was relatively straightforward – limited language barriers, cultural proximity, and simplified employment procedures made Eastern European workers a natural solution for staffing shortages.
The situation began changing after 2022. The war in Ukraine, demographic changes, and growing competition for workers across Europe pushed Polish employers to increasingly open recruitment channels toward Asia and Latin America. In gastronomy, the growing presence of employees from the Philippines, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia became especially visible.
Importantly, this no longer concerns only basic positions. Foreign workers are increasingly taking on roles requiring high professional competencies – executive chefs, regional cuisine specialists, and operational managers. In many cases, Asian, Indian, or Middle Eastern restaurants are actively building their competitive advantage around the authenticity of both their cuisine and their staff.
In practice – no. Although HoReCa is one of the sectors most open to foreign workers, the employment process itself remains difficult, time-consuming, and unpredictable for many employers.
From a legal and administrative perspective, gastronomy does not currently enjoy any particularly privileged status compared to other industries. Restaurant owners face the same challenges as manufacturing, logistics, or construction – lengthy visa procedures, overloaded administrative offices, changing interpretations of regulations, and general bureaucratic uncertainty.
For hospitality businesses, this is especially problematic because the sector operates at a much faster pace than most areas of the economy. A restaurant cannot wait six months for a chef before the summer season begins. Staffing shortages directly affect the number of customers served, waiting times, and service quality.
In practice, this means that companies with experience in immigration and employment legalization procedures – or those cooperating with specialized recruitment agencies – currently hold a significant competitive advantage.
This question appears increasingly often in public debate, but the way it is framed can be misleading. In most cases, the issue is not about “replacing” local workers, but about filling shortages that the domestic labor market is no longer capable of covering.
In many regions of Poland, restaurant owners are no longer competing with each other for workers – they are competing for any workers willing to take jobs in gastronomy at all. This is especially visible in tourist destinations and large metropolitan areas.
Moreover, foreign workers often stabilize teams more effectively than seasonal local employees. Many employers point out that international workers tend to demonstrate lower turnover, greater willingness to relocate, and higher availability during peak seasonal periods.
This does not mean that a workforce model based on foreign employees is free from challenges. Language barriers, cultural differences, housing issues, and adaptation processes still require greater organizational effort from employers than in the case of many local employees.
The hospitality industry also plays an important social role. For many Poles, daily contact with foreigners takes place precisely in restaurants, hotels, and service establishments. These environments are often the first spaces where customers regularly interact with migrants and develop positive associations with foreign workers.
Interestingly, gastronomy is one of the few industries where a worker’s origin is often perceived as an added value rather than a problem. Customers frequently expect authenticity – Thai cuisine prepared by Thai chefs, Indian food made by Indian cooks, or sushi created by chefs with Asian culinary experience.
In some ways, this resembles the role of native speakers in language learning. Being born in a given country does not automatically make someone an expert or master of regional cuisine, but consumers still often associate cultural authenticity with a higher-quality dining experience.
This is one reason why the presence of foreigners in gastronomy is socially perceived far more naturally than in some other sectors of the labor market.
In recent years, the number of restaurants founded by foreigners has grown noticeably. This trend is particularly visible in Asian, Middle Eastern, Caucasian, and Latin American cuisine concepts.
Formally, the ability of foreigners to open hospitality businesses in Poland depends on their citizenship and residence status, but in practice the largest barriers are often financial and organizational rather than administrative. Challenges usually involve commercial rent costs, financing, understanding Polish regulations, navigating the local market, and building stable teams.
At the same time, gastronomy remains one of the most socially open sectors for migrant entrepreneurship. Customers generally evaluate restaurants primarily based on food quality and service rather than the nationality of the owner.
From the industry’s perspective – definitely yes. Restaurant owners have long argued that the main issue is not the possibility of employing foreigners itself, but rather the length and unpredictability of the procedures.
For gastronomy in particular, faster visa pathways for shortage occupations, digitization of administrative procedures, and greater consistency in official decisions would be highly beneficial. In practice, the HoReCa sector operates on seasonal cycles and requires flexibility that current systems often fail to provide.
At the same time, simplifying procedures does not mean abandoning employment legality controls. For professional employers, the key issue is above all stability and predictability within the system.
The most important transformation of recent years is that gastronomy no longer recruits only locally. Just a few years ago, foreign workers were often treated as temporary solutions. Today, in many restaurants and hotels, international teams have become the operational standard.
The HoReCa industry has not only adapted to labor migration – in many ways, it has actively accelerated the social normalization of foreigners within the Polish labor market. In practice, gastronomy became one of the first sectors where customers began perceiving multicultural teams as a completely natural part of everyday life.
Everything suggests that this process will continue to deepen. Labor shortages in hospitality remain a structural issue, while demographic changes and evolving expectations among local workers mean that without foreign employees, maintaining parts of the gastronomy sector may simply become impossible.
