PRO.VAR, the national recovery association, fears that the lack of specific measures to support the sector will translate into “thousands of closures” and “tens of thousands of unemployed”. The approaching Christmas period seems to bring “excellent expectations” as “a lot of reservations appear” and customers “seem willing to pay a little more”, but the concern is for 2023 and the increase in costs that will come then, namely with the raising the minimum wage.
Daniel Serra, president of the association, acknowledges that the restoration comes from a summer when billing was “above average”, but he assures that, with the “massive pressure” upstream, “entrepreneurs have never had to do so many bills and even their resort to technical assistance” to arrive at final consumer price figures. The net results “are not what was expected” and the association fears that given that by its very nature it is a cash-in but deferred-pay industry, many entrepreneurs “will not realize the financial gap until the end of the year”.
“Without an adequate tax system, the sector is under great pressure, as thousands of establishments that do not know how to calculate put pressure on prices and systematically lower them,” says the official, who defends the implementation of reforms that allow “greater fairness and fiscal justice”, namely through the system lift pass, which “should serve to introduce a minimum VAT payment commitment”, creating a “well-defined” tax breakdown from the start. A model that is “implemented in many countries, namely in neighboring Spain,” he says.
Duplicate value invoices
According to PRO.VAR, restaurants are facing increases of 50 to 100% in energy bills and 25 to 30% in raw materials. And with staff costs “rising” as the lack of staff forces “to update salaries and provide other benefits” such as more days off to retain employees. Still, “many restaurants cannot operate at full capacity today due to lack of staff,” he assures.
And that’s why Daniel Serra is unaware of Kantar’s data, in a recent study, which shows that families spend an average of 15% more each time they visit restaurants than they did in the first half of 2019. data is from a global study, but the association admits that they are not far from the Portuguese reality.
“This increase exists, but it should be much more, of the order of 25 or 30%,” argues the leader, assuring that restaurants “absorb some of the costs”, but that this puts them on the path to a “perfect storm”, as with the end of summer there are fewer customers, especially foreigners, billing is falling, but the pressure “remains huge because the costs are there”.
Still in debt due to the pandemic
In addition to the fact that restaurants are still footing the bill of the pandemic, with all the debt they have accrued during that period, when they resort to Treasury borrowing and that now, with interest rates rising, the associated costs are becoming “almost impractical” for many .
“The government has to find a solution to this. Restaurants went into debt not to do business, but because they were unable to operate during the pandemic. They were the most vulnerable sector, while others were spared,” emphasizes Daniel Serra, in reference to the industry that had no operational constraints.
The reduction of the VAT on catering from 13 to 6% on the food component is one of PRO.VAR’s demands, as is the exemption from TSU for all salary increases made above the values included in the collective labor agreement of the restaurant. “We need to make substantial salary updates, 10 or 20% above the average. With the pandemic, there were a lot of workers, about 50 to 60 thousand, who realized that if they changed industries, they could have a different quality of life and only with salary increases will we be able to compete,” argues this official.
It is a sector that consists of 80 to 90 thousand companies, many of which are registered, and which employs almost a million people, he says.
Ilídia Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
