Restaurants and shops in Caleta de Sebo cannot find anywhere to house their seasonal staff

Every spring, as peak season approaches, businesses in Caleta de Sebo — restaurants, dive shops, bike rental outfits — face the same problem before they even open their doors: where the staff they need to hire are going to sleep. On an island with barely a few hundred homes, finding accommodation for seasonal workers has become, according to hospitality sector sources, as complicated as finding customers.

Sharing beds and shifts

Given the shortage, it is common for several employees to share the same home, or even the same room on different shifts, and for some businesses to directly cover the cost of housing their staff in the only option available: a house rented from whichever owner is willing, at prices that, according to property portals, have soared in recent years due to the scarcity of supply.

Crossing the water every day

Other workers choose to live in Órzola or Haría, in Lanzarote, and cross on the first boat of the morning every day, which lengthens their working day and adds to their daily costs in ferry tickets. Sector sources acknowledge that this dependence on sea transport introduces an added risk: any weather event that suspends crossings can leave a business without staff from one day to the next.

The result, according to both business owners and residents' sources, is that the housing shortage no longer affects only families wanting to settle permanently on La Graciosa, but is starting to shape the very viability of the businesses that sustain the island's economy.

Businesses limiting their own activity

Unable to guarantee accommodation for more staff, several businesses in Caleta de Sebo simply choose to cut their opening hours or forgo expanding their offering during the busiest months, according to hospitality sector sources. This self-imposed limit contrasts with tourist demand that, far from shrinking, keeps growing every season, leaving business owners facing the paradox of having more potential customers than they can serve.

Business owners calling for a collective solution

Some hospitality business owners on the island have informally raised the possibility of jointly setting up a home or a small building dedicated exclusively to housing seasonal staff, sharing the cost between several businesses. Sector sources acknowledge that the initiative has not gone beyond the talking stage, largely because the housing stock actually available to buy or rent for that purpose is practically non-existent in Caleta de Sebo.

A problem shared with other smaller islands in the archipelago

The difficulty of housing seasonal workers is not unique to La Graciosa: tourism sector sources point to similar, if less intense, situations in other small settlements in the Canary Islands where available housing is preferentially used for tourist rentals. In La Graciosa's case, however, the combination of a minimal housing stock and the lack of any transport alternative to the boat worsens the problem to the point of making it, according to the same sources, one of the most severe anywhere in the archipelago.