On the North Sea coast, French and Belgian businesses are competing for seasonal workers: whilst France has better working hours, inflation-adjusted wages see employees in Belgium earn €3 more per hour on average.
The higher pay even breaks down the language barrier, as seasonal workers from France choose to work in seaside hotels and restaurants in West Flanders, French television network TF1 reports.
In the Flemish coastal town of De Panne, which is a ten-minute drive away from the French border, 90% of the workers at the beach establishments are French. One restaurant employee from Dunkirk explained that there is a "€700 difference for the same workload".
Language barrier?
One French waiter at a café in De Panne played down the language difference between Flanders and France, explaining to Le Monde that it is enough "just knowing how to say 'hello', 'goodbye' and 'enjoy your meal'". Some staff, however, are required to take one or two hours of Flemish language lessons per week.
Meanwhile on the French side, in Dunkirk, restauranteurs are complaining about staff shortages. "Young people are going to work in Belgium, leaving us feeling a little cheated. We can't recruit enough staff," Daniel Claeysen, a restaurant manager in Dunkirk told TF1.
Cross-border workers in this region are nothing new: in 2017, 23,700 people were working across the border in Belgium and residing in the Hauts-de-France department, the French region which borders Flanders.
Over the past year, the economic downturn (exacerbated by Russia's war on Ukraine) has made working at the seaside in Belgium more lucrative, thanks to the country's wage adjustments to inflation.
Belgium's automatic advantage
Belgium is one of the few countries to operate an automatic wage indexation, which saw wages rise by up to 11% over the past year. France only applies automatic indexation to the minimum wage, which has been increased three times, in increments of 1-2% since August 2022. The latest increase, of 2%, entered into effect on Monday.
President of the Northern branch of the Hotel Industry Workers Union, Eric Dubois described the current minimum wage for the hospitality industry in France as "unsustainable".
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But it isn't always brighter in Belgium: some French service workers tell of a "different mentality" on the Belgian coast, in particular with regard to longer working hours. One former waiter spoke of working in De Panne for an average of 75 hours per week. He assured that he would never go back there to work.
