4 days off

Innkeeper desperate: No cook despite 3-day week

The Sperling restaurant is idyllically located in the beautiful Augarten, one of Vienna's most beautiful parks.(Bild: Sperling im Augarten)

Despite having a lot of free time, a popular restaurant in Vienna's Leopoldstadt district can't find anyone to work in the kitchen.

Eight hours a day, five days a week - a total of 40 hours. This is roughly what the typical working week looks like for most employees in our country.

While the SPÖ and the trade union see the 4-day week with only 32 hours as the working model of the future, a restaurant in Leopoldstadt is already working a 3-day week.

3 days work, 4 days off: Aurelio Nitsche and Andreas Sael (right) run the Sperling restaurant in Augarten.(Bild: Sperling im Augarten)

"We had a 4-day week for our service staff right from the start. For a few years now, it's only been three days and that's been very well received," says Sperling boss Andreas Sael.

After all, it provides the perfect work-life balance. But Sael is still plagued by employee worries. He has been desperately looking for a chef for almost six months.

"We've really tried everything"
The position in the kitchen is currently advertised on all platforms - so far without success. "We've really tried everything. Nobody is applying," says the restaurateur with resignation. Although there have been a few applicants, most of them were unqualified. Among them was a bricklayer who didn't even know how to cut and process meat.

In any case, training as a chef is a must. Some applicants also had utopian salary expectations. For the job as "chef de partie", the Sperling offers between 1800 and 1900 euros net per month.