To think that if the hospitality industry is struggling to fill vacancies...

[Susie477]

It should pay higher wages?

The hospitality industry is facing a ‘jobs crisis’, we are told. Restaurants are complaining that they can’t recruit the workers they need to re-open after lockdown. Many of the foreign workers they previously relied on have gone home after Brexit & covid, and they are struggling to recruit British workers to do minimum wage jobs with unsocial working hours.

So why not offer to pay more? Businesses accept that they have to pay competitively to recruit senior executives and justify high salaries by citing ‘market forces’. Why doesn’t the same apply to ordinary workers?

One of the alleged benefits of Brexit was supposed to be that the U.K. economy would be forced to break its addiction to an unlimited supply of cheap immigrant labour. So why isn’t it happening? Why aren’t wages rising?

I've never did have that. Tbf it may be because I have no idea people can get in work benefits at that point...
I always had the bloody opposite problem. Way too many hours. Most of people around me did.
I think it vastly varies from place to place though

@MintyMabel

The massive rise in cheap labour from Europe has not helped us. Lots of people willing to work for low pay and poor conditions has driven down standards.

It hasn't. Minimum wage is the same no matter who you employ. Employment laws are the same no matter who you employ. Stop perpetuating this ridiculous myth.

Even though the WTD stipulates eleven hours mandatory rest between shifts, I remember working in hotel restaurants where Polish workers from an agency would be minibused in half an hour each way and then go on to work 16 hour days, six days a week. That's a 96 hour week, plus the travelling time. Not legal to have so little rest and they were like zombies, struggling to stay awake. If they hadn't been willing to work in such conditions, the hotel would have been forced to improve the lot of the in-house staff to improve retention.

Cafes in local tourist town pay students £30 cash in hand for working full 10 hour days. These places were open during lockdown for take away and did a really good trade. For many kids it was their first job so they were happy to put up with it as it is difficult to get work without experience. Now they have experience and realise that being paid £3 ph is pretty rubbish they are quite rightly moving to other jobs. Most going to supermarket or retail.

Have you ever run a business? It is unrealistic to expect small business owners to pay very high wages for low skill jobs

Yes I have. If I'd needed to rely on the tax payer or workers' families subsidising their wages I'd have considered it a non viable business.

At least int he UK we pay a living wage

Hahah. There is a living wage defined. Where on earth do you get the idea that people have to pay it? In hospitality you often won't get minimum wage let alone the living wage. Those practices you describe of pay being entirely dependent on tips - that happens here as well. Especially where tips go through the central billing in a restaurant.

@ivykaty44

They were very low but at least you knew where you stood and could budget around it.

There is no way you can budget around a zero hours contract and what’s worse is the benefits have to fluctuate and don’t keep up, so you end up with 12 council tax bills as it keeps changing

This.

Have you ever run a business? It is unrealistic to expect small business owners to pay very high wages for low skill jobs

Decent wages not ‘very high’ wages.

It depends on how much you value the work your staff do.
I’d take a guess and say that a busy restaurant wouldn’t be busy for long if the serving staff and kitchen porters walked out.
Without these people you don’t have a business.

@SilverGlitterBaubles

Cafes in local tourist town pay students £30 cash in hand for working full 10 hour days. These places were open during lockdown for take away and did a really good trade. For many kids it was their first job so they were happy to put up with it as it is difficult to get work without experience. Now they have experience and realise that being paid £3 ph is pretty rubbish they are quite rightly moving to other jobs. Most going to supermarket or retail.

That's pretty shit. These should be ddone with. Makes the rest of us look bad🙄

They could pay higher wages.

Which in turn will be passed onto customers.

Are you willing to pay more?

@GintyMcGinty

They could pay higher wages.

Which in turn will be passed onto customers.

Are you willing to pay more?

Or the owners could take lower wage/ profit less? Are they willing to do so?

Hospitality finances work best when the owner is actually working in the business.

When a business plan is based on an owner not having to be hands on then it seems the maths doesn’t add up. Round here the decent businesses where the owner is there selling the coffee/beer etc and they pay fair wages it works. Compare it to a larger operation/chain where the profit is spent on overheads then it doesn’t work.

Places CAN pay more but they prefer to send the profits to the owners and backers.

Exactly!

Or the owners could take lower wage/ profit less? Are they willing to do so?

Most owners aren't ranking it in as people thing. Margins on food aren't massive. Only people I know who are foing super well financially are ones with multiple outlets. The rest is doing ok but nothing spectacular.

I know people think places buy broccoli for 25p and sell it for 5, but that's not how it works.

Or the owners could take lower wage/ profit less? Are they willing to do so?

Most in hospitality are small businesses and most are hanging on by their last fingernail with owners taking home no more than their staff just now and accruing huge amounts of personnel debt.

Even the bigger businesses with shareholders are making losses and not paying out any profits.

So they are. Just to keep from going under.

Noticed you didn't answer my question. Are you willing to pay more?

Paying more - yes in many cases. Cafes that sell home-made interesting cakes can charge say £4 a slice compared to factory muffins wrapped in plastic. That’s in our city anyway. People recognise value over price.

People recognise value over price
Many seriously don't. That's one of the issues.

The problems around this are intertwined and come in from many directions. Problem is that to untangle them, you have to start somewhere and that's a risk. Put up prices so you can put up wages? Risking customers leaving. Put up wages, risk loses. Now there is a push which hasn't been there before so places are upping wages, they are also upping prices slightly (obviously, higher wages, lower seating capacity....). They have been forced to it. I wonder how the food quality will be in many places.
People were willing to pay dosh for ping meal in restaurant with known name, but god forbid independent cooking it on site from scratch tries to charge adequate price.

Food industry is all cursed with unrealistic expectation. People want fast, cheap, good. Not possible.

Did you all know that Boohoo's profits soared EVEN after it turned out (YET AGAIN) how the employees are treated? Perfectly shows that most people want cheap and that's the end of their concern.

It's not just food industry. The moaning about tradesmen prices is sometimes mind boggling too. "But it will only take 30 min!". Yeah. With tools, lots paid for various certificates and courses, travel, tax etc.

Even though the WTD stipulates eleven hours mandatory rest between shifts, I remember working in hotel restaurants where Polish workers from an agency would be minibused in half an hour each way and then go on to work 16 hour days, six days a week. That's a 96 hour week, plus the travelling time. Not legal to have so little rest and they were like zombies, struggling to stay awake. If they hadn't been willing to work in such conditions, the hotel would have been forced to improve the lot of the in-house staff to improve retention

Thats purely down to cuts in govt funding to enforce labour laws.

You should have dobbed them in, those hours are slave working conditions.
You ve no idea if they were willing or not, in any case irrelevant.

That situation with the polish staff sounds pretty much like a modern slavery example.
Which is apparently rife in agriculture. Every now and then we have articles of our nationals being saved from these things. Disgraceful

It's been disappointing to see some big names in hospitality not leading the way on these issues. They go on TV claiming hard times and yet can continue to open new premises while paying NMW. Do check out their websites to see what they are offering, and we all know what "competitive salary" means. One was complaining on Twitter about a lack of applicants for a sommelier position. I didn't get a reply to the suggestion that perhaps they should include the salary in the ad. "But it's such a lovely place to work." Beautiful yes, working environment? That's not what your staff say. These "leaders" need to stop preaching about the industry being a great one to work in if they can't follow through with great pay and conditions.

Employees need to look at company accounts before starting too. They're not all struggling.

I voted YABU not because hospitality staff should be poorly paid, but because the present situation is more complex than that and businesses starting back up after 7+ months without being able to trade fully (if at all) can't just bump wages up to a more desirable level.

A long term shift to better pay and working conditions would be good, but it can't be instantly magicked up.

Did you all know that Boohoo's profits soared EVEN after it turned out (YET AGAIN) how the employees are treated? Perfectly shows that most people want cheap and that's the end of their concern.
The clothing industry is a perfect example of people wanting more stuff, right now, and at the cheapest price.
If a big company can make profit on a £3 bikini, and everyone else in the chain can make a profit, where does that leave the sewist who is making the garment?
Some of the rivers near factories for fast fashion as horrifyingly polluted and provide millions with contaminated drinking water.
And yet in some parenting groups I see people moaning that £5 is too much for a t shirt.

It's not just food industry. The moaning about tradesmen prices is sometimes mind boggling too. "But it will only take 30 min!". Yeah. With tools, lots paid for various certificates and courses, travel, tax etc
Well said.
I've got friends in music and the creative arts and they regularly get jobs offered "for exposure" aka free. So places want all the benefit of a trained and talented musician, who arranges their own pieces, has studied and trained to a high level, but don't see why they should pay.
We get the same in schools. Some parents ask us to give some 1-1 tuition for their child. No. Go and pay a tutor. We already do our jobs in class and most of us run revision sessions or drop ins. Teachers are not here here provide you with free private tuition.

It's a cultural issue that is damaging.

businesses starting back up after 7+ months without being able to trade fully (if at all) can't just bump wages up to a more desirable level.

Businesses won't be able to trade at all if they haven't got the workers to staff them and therefore can't open. Like I've said, businesses aren't owed charity labour, it's not my problem that restaurant a is struggling so paying min wage and restaurant b is doing better so paying £9 ph, I don't have some moral calling to go work in restaurant a. They either need to change their business model to be more viable or will have to close. So business are either going to have to find a way to attract staff or simply won't be able to open.

Restaurants closing would be a good thing, obesity levels would drop

@Miasicarisatia

Restaurants closing would be a good thing, obesity levels would drop

😂😂😂😂😂

Sure

I am fat, I very rarely eat in restaurants.