Why is hospitality facing staff shortages?

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After what has been a hugely difficult eighteen months, things seem to be looking up for the hospitality industry. Lockdown is continuing to ease; pubs are rammed for the Euros and there’s no end to the demand for restaurant and bar bookings. However, the easing of Covid-19 restrictions has created new challenges for the hospitality industry.

Despite unbridled demand offering the sector a much-needed boost, skills and staff shortages in the hospitality industry threaten to dampen the sector’s recovery. Research by Hospitality UK has found that the sector has a vacancy rate of 9% which implies a shortage of 188,000 hospitality staff across the UK. These shortages are mainly concentrated in waiting, bar, and chef roles, though they also are a problem within housekeeping and management roles.

The exact cause of the shortages is unknown, though they are likely a result of the double whammy impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. Before the pandemic, 30% of hospitality workers in the UK came from Europe and up to 50% of chefs are thought to have been born outside the UK. However, the pandemic, the Brexit referendum, and the implementation of the new immigration system has led to an exodus of European migrants. It is estimated that 2.3 million non-UK workers have left the UK since late 2019. However, levels of EU to UK migration have been low since the Brexit vote in 2016, meaning a significant pool of talent that businesses in the hospitality sector traditionally drew upon has been in long-term decline for half a decade.

The new points-based immigration system, which was implemented in January this year, has placed significantly more stringent restrictions on migrants entering the UK and closed the borders to so-called low skilled migrants. With many roles in the hospitality industry deemed below the skill level required for entry and the new system placing an increased financial and administrative burden on both businesses and migrants, it is no wonder that research conducted by the jobs website Indeed has found that searches from EU-based jobseekers for roles in the hospitality sector were down by 41% from levels in 2019.

Undoubtedly the pandemic has also had an impact on the ability of hospitality businesses to retain existing staff. According to research conducted by CGA and CPL Learning, confidence in the sector and its ability to offer stable and secure employment has been shaken with 42% of staff surveyed reporting they are concerned about their long-term job security. With the sector closed for a significant proportion of the past eighteen months, many staff have felt obliged to find alternative employment to protect incomes and job security. Some employers have also reported that the pandemic, and the increased time staff had to spend with friends and family, prompted some to look for alternative employment which offers more sociable working hours.

There are concerns that the sectoral instability caused by the pandemic has also reduced the number of young people or career switchers wanting to establish careers in the hospitality industry. Research shows that the pandemic has triggered a shift in perceptions about working in the sector. Although 59% of people still believe the sector offers good career prospects, this figure has fallen by a significant 15% since June 2020. Similarly, there has been a fall in the number of people who would recommend the sector to establish careers in to family and friends.

So how can people be encouraged to stay establish careers in the hospitality sector?

In the short term, with staff in short supply there will be increasing competition between businesses for talent. Undoubtedly many businesses will be reassessing their own remuneration packages and what benefits they offer staff in order to remain competitive. However, businesses have also highlighted that they are working hard to bolster staff wellbeing as we emerge from the pandemic in an effort to both support and retain employees. To tackle staff shortages and ease the shift back to work from furlough, Hall Garth Hotel in Darlington is offering enhanced employment packages, renewed training and supported transitions back into work for staff from the Job Retention Scheme.

Nevertheless, the sector is facing longer-term recruitment challenges and there is clearly work to be done to encourage new entrants to the workforce to establish a pipeline of talent which can sustain hospitality businesses in the future. Undeniably it will be more important than ever for businesses in the hospitality sector to engage with schools, colleges and universities in order to highlight the huge benefits which the sector can offer new entrants, which include a diverse range of roles, accessible entry routes and huge potential for upward progression in a growing economic sector. It will also be important for hospitality businesses struggling to find the experienced staff they may need to lay the groundwork now and offer training programmes or apprenticeships to young people to encourage them into the sector and to equip them with the skills the industry needs in the future.

Government also has an important role to play to help the hospitality sector recover from the pandemic and plug staff shortages. With unemployment high and set to rise as government support unwinds, the onus will be on jobcentres to highlight the opportunities within the hospitality sector to those who are out of work and searching for new opportunities.

However, perhaps what is the most pressing concern for employers in the hospitality sector is the impacts of restricted migration and the new points-based system. It is likely that changes will need to be made to ensure the sector can access the talent it needs. One way of doing so in the short to medium term is by expanding the number of roles on the Shortage Occupation List. In the long term, Government needs to assess the impacts of the system and could look to embed more flexibility within it to ensure that the workforce can respond to rapidly changing business needs.

“This will only exist in the moment…”

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Sage Gateshead’s managing director Abigail Pogson explains how the venue is adapting to the Coronavirus pandemic.

These were the last words spoken in Sage One before we closed to the public for the foreseeable future, in response to government advice and for the safety of our audiences, our team and our musicians. The words were spoken by the wonderful Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero, who always finishes her concerts with an improvisation. Improvisation is the purest form of ‘only existing in this moment’ – not written down, not thought about in advance, always in response to a musical idea which she asks an audience member to suggest. She gave this last concert on the back of a rollercoaster 48 hours in which she thought she had Coronavirus, self-isolated, then tested negative, missing her first concert scheduled at Sage Gateshead, then played her second with us as her country’s borders were closing and the number of flights to get her back home to Spain was decreasing by the minute. In the end this last concert (which we all knew in our hearts it was) was exceptional and very moving.

Indeed the whole sequence of performances last week in Sage One – widely accepted as the best concert hall in Europe – reminded me of the power of live performance and the power of different music for different contexts. As closure steadily became inevitable, the diversity of Sage Gateshead’s musical and audience reach played out in three days. On Wednesday Sage Gateshead filled with the incredible sound of 900 Year 4 pupils from 30 Gateshead and South Tyneside schools, lifting the roof of Sage One with their voices in front of an audience of parents and friends – an audience which had come to watch the culmination of several months of work by them in school. On Thursday The Lightning Seeds opened their six date UK tour at Sage Gateshead and as everyone got on their feet and sang and danced their hearts away to Football’s Coming Home, three decades faded away and we were in a totally different time. On Friday Royal Northern Sinfonia performed music written across a whole century, composed by a Norwegian and two Russians, with a conductor from France and soloist from Germany. It’s hard to imagine three more different concerts, three more different audiences, three more different atmospheres.

‘This only exists in the moment’ applies to any live performance – these words capture what is so compelling and unique about live performance. A group of people who don’t know each other, select to come together to form a community – an audience – for a short period of time. Only they will have this experience, and when it’s over, it’s gone. Time and again people tell me it’s not just about the magic of a great musician at their height which brings them to gigs, it’s also that it’s shared with other people and the electric atmosphere which this creates. Last week the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra proved this by streaming a concert in an empty auditorium – brilliant music and musicians, led by the legendary Sir Simon Rattle. A fantastic thing to do, and something we will all do a lot of in coming times. But no audience, no atmosphere, no community, no immediate exchange.

So this is a curious time to run an organisation for which a core part of our purpose is to organise ‘massed gatherings’ for over 1000 people on a daily basis. We do much much more than performances -we teach young people, give classes to adults, support the next generation of musicians from the North, use music to help people who are vulnerable, work in communities across the region. We are one of the biggest cultural charities in the country. But this week it is the performances – perhaps the most visible aspect of the charity’s work – which I’ve been thinking about. And as we have closed down the building, postponing all of our concerts, classes and activity, the building feels incomplete – empty with no preparation or anticipation of an event which is just around the corner. No anticipation of an audience – of parents anticipating hearing their children, of long term fans anticipating hearing music which is the soundtrack of another part of their life, of people wanting to hear something new, to have their ears opened to a new world of sound.

As the building has fallen silent, one thing has been really clear to me – live music will be back. We are heading into a time when gigs will go online, we’ll build virtual choirs, music classes will take via Facetime. We will all live closer to home and in much smaller networks for a while. But beyond this, the live, face to face, in-person experience will be back. As our box office team are beginning the process of calling every audience member who has a ticket for a concert which won’t go ahead on the planned date, something has started to happen. Rather than a refund, people have started to donate their ticket back to the charity. Knowing the risk which the charity – like so many others – will be at through this crisis, members of our audience have opted to help us out. This will enable us to keep things secure for our musicians, our teachers, our staff and to be here at the end of this – to give world class performances, to teach people of all ages, to serve our communities, to use music to help people in their lives. We’re incredibly grateful for this generosity and that people are thinking of us.

Above all I wonder whether this is a sign of the value of live music and that unique atmosphere created by an audience coming together for a brief time to hear something which only ‘in this moment’.

Keep safe

Abigail Pogson, Managing Director, Sage Gateshead

Click here to donate to the Sage Gateshead Coronavirus Resilience Fund