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?

There was a thread on here a week or so ago where a cafe owner wanted someone for antisocial hours at minimum wage. They obviously weren't prepared to do the antisocial hours themselves for their own business and were shocked no one wanted to do them for NMW.

Then there's the ridiculous qualifications and experience employers expect for NMW and the being able to cover holiday and sickness at the drop of a hat when you're only prepared to pay someone for 5 hours of their time a week.

Prices will have to go up. Restaurant meals and takeaways have not risen in line with general food increases in supermarkets.

Paying more is only part of the answer I expect. With one in ten restaurants not having re-opened or closed permanently, job insecurity especially when compared with some alternative options such as supermarkets or delivery/warehouse work I am sure is a factor.

The other aspect which much increase turnover of staff or put people off working in hospitality is customer behaviour. The low level things such as speaking to someone as if they were their servant (or worse) right up to threatening behaviour or abuse.

My grandson works in fast food industry part time during school and now full time during the summer to afford college. The dining area is not open but drive-thru and Uber-Eats (a delivery service) are very active. He works 35 hours a week. Diner is closed on Sundays.
The owner has to pay $1 per hour more on Fridays and Saturdays because young people do not want to work those days -- they would rather go out drinking, etc. and don't show up for shifts. My grandson picks up an extra shift every weekend, at the higher payscale.

I always found restaurant work more lucrative than retail when I was a student, wages were roughly minimum wage but tips on top. I worked at a tgi Fridays on a retail park for a while and would earn around £100 in tips on top of my wages on a Saturday and that was twenty years ago.
The whole wages system needs to be reviewed, I have practitioners in my team managing child protection cases on £11-12 an hour, they can earn £10.75 at Lidl. In the last twelve years 9 of them have been public sector pay freeze and they've just introduced another one. In years with no pay freeze we are lucky to get 2%.

They want people to be fully flexible, work unsociable hours, work for NMW, over 18, WITH experience.
I think the problem is that university students are not back en masse in cities and towns so are not there to fill the vacancies.

My neice had been quite brutally laid off from her place of work (London restaurant) by the beginning of April 2020. No furlough, no redundancy, nothing.

I really doubt she'll return to that level of low pay given the unsocial hours, the uncertainty and the way she was previously treated.

I really hope we see market forces at work and this results in higher wages for hospitality and care home workers. If higher wages and better T&C's are what it takes to recruit and retain staff, then ultimately that's what has to happen, you can't force anyone to work in a restaurant if they can get a better job in a call centre for example, as lots seem to be suggesting. It may mean fewer hospitality venues survive, but if their employees are not out of work because they have found alternative more appealing work, that would overall not be detrimental to the economy. Yes hospitality prices may need to increase, but some people will still be able to afford them. Just like many leisure activities, maybe we'll eat out less, or not at all, maybe we'll just drink coffee we make at home. If as a result we do away with things like zero hours contracts because workers won't accept them anymore, it will be worth it.

the work is unskilled labour, how can that really ever justify a higher wage when quite literally anyone could, if they wished/were available, replace the staff

Would you like to tell my Hilton trained Chef husband he is unskilled? He's had to take a job in a Nursing Home kitchen to make ends meet when he was made redundant in November. NMW. 30k paycut pa

Presume that if employers can’t recruit / retain people on the wages and terms they’re offering, or get adequate custom at higher prices, then their businesses are no longer viable and will fail.

Throughout the whole of lockdown furlough didn't cover the costs of keeping staff on. It covered basic wages. Pension contributions, holiday pay (and holiday is accrued even when staff are furloughed), national insurance had to be found out of the business owners pocket. Grants didn't cover this as the business was paying rent, utilities, insurance, maintenance etc. This is why so many businesses had to sadly let staff go. Not because they 'just stopped paying furlough' as suggested by a PP.

Coupled with the fact even those who had pandemic cover are still waiting for insurance payouts. Insurance companies have been ordered to pay out by the courts but they are falling over themselves to find ways out of it. Only a handful of businesses have had any insurance money, and those that have get 3 months cover, not the whole of lockdown.

Staff have also been fairly duplicitous. Many have taken on second jobs, while also claiming furlough. This is legal by the way so why not. However, they have lumbered businesses with the extra costs as mentioned above (NI, pensions, holiday), only to hand their notice in the second they are called back in. Had they been honest about not coming back businesses would have looked to recruit earlier, and not be saddled with extra debt that they can ill afford.

It's been a very hard year for hospitality.

Where I live there are so many restaurants. There’s a huge mall type place with 8 or 9 pizza/Greek/Mexican/international buffet type restaurants; another one 5 minutes walk away with restaurants like Nando’s and Wagamama, and a ‘restaurant quarter’ lined with all kinds of restaurants and bars. If one restaurant put its price up to cover higher wages people would just go elsewhere. A place that has a unique selling point - like a Michelin star - could get away with it, but a Bella Italia is the same as an Ask is the same as a Zizzis is the same as a Pizza Express. There’s only so much you can charge for a pizza before people vote with their feet.

Before Covid some parents would expect their DC to get a part time job to earn some income. With Covid about, and younger people not being vaccinated, I can see some telling their DC to stay home.

Also if wages rise, prices rise. There is a limit to what restaurants can charge for meals and still attract customers.

they were so busy at my local on saturday lunch time, running around, inside and outside,

all customers sitting down

I assume because prices would have to increase too, which in turn may make the business less competitive.

It also might not just be the wages - dealing with the “great” British public who treat you with contempt is a thankless task.

Younger women or men are making their money online instead. Whether by influencing or Only Fans. Why work zero hours/minimum wage in a crap job, when you can perhaps earn good money doing that instead? This is how many are viewing it now. Not the same culture of students working a bar or restaurant at weekends.

There are arguments against NMW on the basis it interferes with the free market.

The NMW is meant to protect workers but actually all it has done is meant everywhere is paying the same poor pay. Coupled with tax credits which also keep wages artificially low.

Without it companies would compete against each other, ie, if one cafe is paying 50p more than another they'd poach staff from elsewhere.

If businesses can't survive without very cheap labour then sorry its not viable. Maybe smaller independent business will survive without the big overheads of the large chain restaurants.

[quote littlepattilou]@Susie477 I agree 100%.

It's about time the hospitality industry stopped treating people like shit, and offered a proper wage, with a set amount of hours, (not zero hours contracts,) and proper sick pay/holiday pay etc.

This serves them right, and they brought this all on themselves.

They were happy to pay shit wages and give unsociable hours, (and not a set amount of hours) to people. It's been very hard for many people born in the UK, and made managing their finances very difficult.

But foreign workers didn't care, as their meagre £100 a week was worth 10 times more back where they came from, and they lived 15 to a house here in the UK, so had very little outgoings over here.

But now Brexit and problems with citizenship (and laying people off during covid,) has resulted in a huge gap in hospitality workers, and NOW the companies are going to have to pay decent wages to people (and give regular hours,) if they want to gain - and KEEP - staff.

As you said '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?'

Excellent point. About time unskilled and not very well educated people were treated more fairly. Too much shit has been thrown at the working classes and the poor for too long.

The tide has turned. And about fucking time.[/quote]
Having recently returned. 100%this. I work part time for a large chain who has taken 100s of 1000s this week. Staff get spoken to and treated like crap by management. Sometimes by customers. Long hours no breaks but happily deduct your money if you go over the 6 hours by law. Gratuity has not been great throughout covid and most people don't care about putting staff at risk. Because they have been locked up and are happy to be out

The problem is that eating out is already expensive, poor value for money and unaffordable to many.

If prices rise to accommodate higher wages, then people will eat out less or not at all, restaurants won't get sufficient custom to cover the overhead and won't be profitable.

Eating out will go back to being an occasional treat for better off people and something that people on average or lower incomes never do.

I'm not saying people who work in restaurants should have to work for low wages but that simply paying more won't solve the problem. Better conditions in terms of regular hours each week will help but if prices rise substantially, many people simply won't or can't pay the prices or decide it's not how they want to spend their money.

@KatherineJaneway

Before Covid some parents would expect their DC to get a part time job to earn some income. With Covid about, and younger people not being vaccinated, I can see some telling their DC to stay home.

Also if wages rise, prices rise. There is a limit to what restaurants can charge for meals and still attract customers.

Covid is the other factor. Many unvaccinated 20 somethings will be cautious about taking a job for poor pay that'll put them at high risk.of Covid.

The problem is that eating out is already expensive, poor value for money and unaffordable to many

What is "poor value" or "expensive" in this context?

There is another thread where someone complains that a chinese broccoli side dish was £7. Cue many shocked and horrified posters who think this is a disgrace because they can buy ordinary broccoli for 70p in Aldi.

Why are people in the UK so obsessed with eating out being rock bottom prices and so unappreciative of the value of good service?

Paying a wage that staff can actually live on should be part of the cost of eating out and if that means we do it less often then perhaps that is what should happen.

I don't consider it particularly good value to have half the hospitality industry subsidised by the tax payer in the form of working tax credits to serve an audience who by and large don't value that industry.

Shortages of staff doesn't always mean higher salaries, take care homes or healthcare staff?
Huge shortages for many years yet still poor pay, even removed bursaries and we all vote for that.

The uk has a low wage economy, millions rely on in work benefits, with employers relying on these to keep staff and salaries low, the govt has recently lowered the increase in MW.

The problem is we have an aging and badly educated workforce & the EU workers who used to come here were educated and motivated to work hard and be flexible, willing to do the jobs we weren't able to.
(People willing to move country, tend to be the best that country has)

So stop this moaning, we voted to stop FOM or as i've been told on here "suck it up"

For smaller businesses, coffee shops, restaurants they would have problems paying higher wages as their business models are not based on higher wages. It would change their profit margins and the way they had to charge. I don’t think the public are ready to come out and start paying more. You may get individuals who are happy to but not everyone can. And you would then lose business which would make the prices raises counter productive. It’s just not as straightforward as raising salaries.

Trained chef here with 30 years experience. I quit the industry 10 years ago and have never regretted it.

I went out for a meal with some friends last night. The mark up on my food and drink must have been about 5 - 600%. I know that that covers overheads as well as staff wages, but there’s still enough to pay staff properly and make a profit.

I don’t think young people are generally bothered about Covid at all. We’re on track to lose those 42% of hospitality staff from overseas including 38% from EU.

Our youngsters don’t want to work in hospitality usually; low wages, on your feet the whole time, unsociable work patterns, not particularly pleasant work. Hospitality isn’t seen as a good career in the same way that it is in many other countries.

There will be repercussions from Brexit that are now becoming evident and which can’t be blamed on Covid much longer. Fewer staff in hospitality demanding higher wages and better conditions means higher prices. That means lower usage and more establishments closing. We will get used to eating out less and having fewer choices. Less independent cafes, pubs and restaurants and those surviving likely to be international chains, sadly.