I hope this isn't too shocking but a lot of janitorial and housekeeping work is done by retirement aged people who don't have enough money to actually retire.
The other big piece - especially to the hospitality puzzle - is that immigration was substantially reduced. First politically and then due to Covid. If you look at the number of work visas issued by year, we’re short literally millions of immigrants that would be doing much of the grunt work in restaurants and hotels.
That’s what is a massive issue I see in the EU even if it’s underreported; too many people I know cannot work because of long covid. Some tried anyway and burnt out because of trying too hard; now they have 2 problems. Luckily most of them are in NL where you won’t end up in a tent under a bridge, but I think long covid is taken way too light (at least over here).
If by NL you mean the Netherlands: Long covid falls under a weird category which for all practical purposes means you have to fight the UWV nail and tooth to get even the tiniest bit of leeway. Which you can't since working 40h/week to get proper care+benefits is exactly the problem you are trying to avoid. Oh, and the state already said the uwv should stop doing that but they keep going like they always did. (my evidence for this is anecdotal second hand though).
70% of covid deaths were over the age of 70 years.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2006392117