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?

@anniegun

Wages will have to rise. Some businesses will close and prices will go up - that is how it works. Large numbers of retail workers have lost jobs so that will offset the issue to a degree. However a lot of European workers have gone home. We have had cheap and flexible labour for too long. We should rejoice at a change that benefits the lower paid

I don’t think it will though. It will mean prices going up and if that reduces the number of customers then the restaurant will fail. I very much doubt the government will raise the NMW and many businesses can’t afford to. There was some discussion up thread about the cost of a meal and about value and that’s all true, but objectively for many people £50 for a meal out is already a significant sum, even if it is terrific value for money. Price rises means that restaurants will close and that will just mean fewer jobs are available.

I worked in hospitality 30 years ago. It was always minimum wage, long before we had so many European workers. There was no issue with getting staff. Not every problem in the UK is down to immigration. In reality, very few things are.

One of the problems is fewer students seem to take jobs these days, and many students have also remained at home until face to face learning returns so are less likely to be looking. We've stopped older school children having evening/weekend jobs. Even in our relatively small rural area, most of my friends worked waiting tables when I was at school. Kids don't do that now.

The issues with hospitality are a blip. Perhaps if so many hadn't been so quick to move to making staff redundant and had supported them better, they wouldn't have seen so many leave the industry to find work. Tim Martin himself told his staff to go off and work in Tesco.
They did and now the industry whines they won't come back? They are reaping what they sow.

I can well afford to pay more to eat out but to simply say prices have to rise, it once again ignores the fact that some people struggle to be able to do these things and rising prices will only make that worse.

It’s the lack of stability. The on/off lockdowns have meant that staff don’t know when they’ll be able to work in restaurants, pubs and bars. When they do work, hours are cut. I hope society stays open now forever as deaths are really low. No more lockdowns and disruption.

Probably because working in hospitality wasn’t desirable before Covid- now it’s even worse with the added risk of mixing with strangers many of whom are unmasked sat for extended periods of time. Why would you choose to do this if you could find alternative work?

Also I think people may be wary of being caught out when the next lockdown happens. How many casual workers fell through the net financially. Throw in Brexit and the fact many foreign workers returned home and you can see a picture forming why it is how it is.

Personally I don’t see it being a long term issue because you’ll have plenty of school leavers looking for work in the coming months.

From my point of view I think during the pandemic lots of people have reassessed their lives and how they lived before,The pandemic has speeded up a lot of changes that were likely to happen anyway,such as working from home,the demise of the high street,the rise of the use of the internet with its super speed,stress free,no hassle shopping,hell we dont even have to leave home for a pint of milk anymore etc..anyway I digress,We,as a family used to eat out 3 times a week at pub chains with a soft play attatched,The food was bog standard and we didnt expect any other,the drinks expensive but it was a trade off for the kids being able to play etc all fine but then the pandemic hit and we reassessed and for the maybe 150 quid a week we spent on crap food ,crap service,less than hygenic play centres I kind of wondered what we were doing!!!Now its all about the experiences with family, We will pay more for not the bog standard of yesterday and we pay more gladly,Things in the world are changing so fast but not as fast as what the consummer is willing to put up with, For the same 150 quid we can have a magical day out at the coast with the kids,a theme park, and a million and one other things, I feel many people will maybe feel the same now, I think the changes were inevetable it would have happened anyway but it has been super speeded up. For all of my family the experiences of all being together enjoying totally new experiences together,stuff we would never have considered before,chocolate making,sailing,escape rooms you name it its there to try,as consummers maybe its time we did demand more than the bog standard of yesterday? I am not willing to go back ,sure others feel the same.

When I was young this was considered to be a perk of the job because it kept your weight down! Funny how attitudes change.
It's no so much the being on your feet, it's the not having time to go to the toilet or drink for 10 hours.

I work in the public sector now, when I first asked my line manager if it was ok to take an hour Flexi to go to a doctor's appointment be looked at me like I was insane and explained that I wasn't expected to use Flexi for it. When my daughter hit her head and I got a phone call from school to see if I could come and get her, he was again confused why I was asking him if I could go rather than telling him I was going. It has taken me a year to get over the "symptoms" associated with 11 years in hospitality.

It's no so much the being on your feet, it's the not having time to go to the toilet or drink for 10 hours.

That's not a hospitality problem. That's a shit manager problem. I've never in all the places, in all that nearly 2 decades, I worked had been stopped from going to the toilet or have a drink if water. Even the manager who bullied us to tears in one place wouldn't do that

Tim Martin himself told his staff to go off and work in Tesco. They did and now the industry whines they won't come back? They are reaping what they sow

Yes exactly.

I also did hospitality work as a student and T&Cs were actually better than my DC were offered as students. I found that quite shocking so if more students are doing alternative jobs I'm not surprised. That said far more students go to university than in my day so the pool is much bigger. If hospitality still can't recruit then its not offering good enough T&Cs.

some people struggle to be able to do these things and rising prices will only make that worse

So maybe hospitality needs to shrink to a size which can sustain decent living conditions for the staff (without hefty tax subsidies to the business) and customers need to value good service enough to pay for it.

@Livinglavidalockdown

I've had a secondary job as a waitress for over thirty years and have definitely seen a massive disparity between my income and the cost of living increase. The tips used to make it a livable wage, however , these are rare these days. Totally understandable when a meal out is a great deal for many people, consequently they deserve great service. But this is becoming harder to deliver when labour costs mean there are fewer team members so an increased work load. Having also worked as a restaurant manager I am very aware of how difficult it can be to make a profit. Not sure what the answer is, but personally I am so grateful to be back. While thankful for furlough pay, 80% of minimum wage, that is then taxed at 20% has left me with a huge financial deficit, so a lot of catching up is needed!

But 80% of nmw is only about 1k over the tax free amount, you only pay tax on that amount not the whole lot. Even if you are unable to claim universal credit due to a higher earner in the house or savings your take home pay would still be much more than 80% due to decreased taxation and NI

None of my public sector jobs have allowed time off for appointments, that’s discretionary whether public or private sector

@C8H10N4O2

Tim Martin himself told his staff to go off and work in Tesco. They did and now the industry whines they won't come back? They are reaping what they sow

Yes exactly.

I also did hospitality work as a student and T&Cs were actually better than my DC were offered as students. I found that quite shocking so if more students are doing alternative jobs I'm not surprised. That said far more students go to university than in my day so the pool is much bigger. If hospitality still can't recruit then its not offering good enough T&Cs.

some people struggle to be able to do these things and rising prices will only make that worse

So maybe hospitality needs to shrink to a size which can sustain decent living conditions for the staff (without hefty tax subsidies to the business) and customers need to value good service enough to pay for it.

Absolutely. He told them to fuck off and get a job with better pay, working conditions, hours, pension scheme, paid holiday and employment rights - and without the side order of Little Englander propaganda and complete ignoring of the contact tracing (there's a signing in sheet somewhere in the corner of the pub, fill it in if you really must, we don't care).

So they did.

2 options:

1. these jobs go back to being piece-meal shift-by-shift jobs undertaken by full-time students wanting small amounts of work for odd evenings/weekends/morning/afternoons etc.
2. these jobs become properly paid jobs that are properly part-time or full-time and pay proper wages so people in the jobs market will want them.

Without cheap imported labour it will no longer be possible to pay low wages for this work to people for whom it is their only job. And yes, the hospitality industry did vote for this (Tim Martin was a huge backer of Brexit and Boris Johnson, and still wields huge power over the government).

Pandemic events have a history of making seismic changes in the labour market - the Black Death also marked the death of the feudal system, and changed inheritance law in much of Europe.

I think race to the bottom capitalism as we have had it needs to end. Change is always hard and will hit everyone, but our throwaway lifestyle has to go. It's ridiculous that we live in a country where you can work flat out full time for NMW and still need benefits to top you up - and still not be able to afford somewhere decent to live.

In our nearest city we have 5 universities. A huge amount of hospitality roles are filled with students, only there haven't been any about for a year. I don't expect a lot of the shortages will be filled until September and the students (hopefully) return.

The students are what make the city what it is.

Spot on OP.

Yes, prices will rise but the public are desperate to get out and socialise, I think they will bear the cost and since eating out is luxury, that cost will be borne most heavily by the most well off, exactly as it should be.

There was some discussion up thread about the cost of a meal and about value and that’s all true, but objectively for many people £50 for a meal out is already a significant sum, even if it is terrific value for money. Price rises means that restaurants will close and that will just mean fewer jobs are available.
I think you're sort of right, but also I think people have lost track of the true cost of things. There's a culture of wanting things cheap and wanting things now.

People expect to go for a meal and it be cheap, but don't want to consider what's cut so they can have a cheap meal out.
People expect to have cheap food in the supermarkets, but don't want to consider what's cut so they can buy potatoes for 30p.
People expect to be able go buy a new dress for £5, but don't want to consider what's been cut along the way so a garment that costs them can be shipped half way round the world with each person in the supply chain making a profit.

In many areas, we don't pay the true price that allows people along the way to be paid a fair wage.

@LolaSmiles

There was some discussion up thread about the cost of a meal and about value and that’s all true, but objectively for many people £50 for a meal out is already a significant sum, even if it is terrific value for money. Price rises means that restaurants will close and that will just mean fewer jobs are available. I think you're sort of right, but also I think people have lost track of the true cost of things. There's a culture of wanting things cheap and wanting things now.

People expect to go for a meal and it be cheap, but don't want to consider what's cut so they can have a cheap meal out.
People expect to have cheap food in the supermarkets, but don't want to consider what's cut so they can buy potatoes for 30p.
People expect to be able go buy a new dress for £5, but don't want to consider what's been cut along the way so a garment that costs them can be shipped half way round the world with each person in the supply chain making a profit.

In many areas, we don't pay the true price that allows people along the way to be paid a fair wage.

Absolutely this

Because customers will stop going if prices are too high.

So maybe hospitality needs to shrink to a size which can sustain decent living conditions for the staff (without hefty tax subsidies to the business) and customers need to value good service enough to pay for it.

There is certainly a larger question about all industries moving to a living wage, but raising wages and prices in hospitality alone isn't the answer.

since eating out is luxury, that cost will be borne most heavily by the most well off, exactly as it should be

Only well off people should be able to go out and eat?

When I was a kid, eating out was so expensive that it only happened like twice a year. It’s only this century that it’s become affordable to eat out every week, partially because staff aren’t paid properly. Perhaps people’s expectations are unrealistic and eating out needs to go back to a twice-a-year sort of price.

I don't think the Hospitality industry can afford to pay more...where will they get the money from, after all they have lost during Covid? And it was so obvious that Brexit would cause problems with staffing in all sorts of areas, but really, so what ? as long as we have "got are cuntry back".

Only well off people should be able to go out and eat?
Of course not, but the current situation raises questions about whether it should be the norm to eat out regularly as cheap as possible when our fellow citizens are paying the cost for us to have a cheap pizza.

It would be great if people stopped seeing those who work in hospitality as "unskilled" and "uneducated." Where I work everyone has a degree!

I'm a 37 year old waitress who runs the FOH day shifts. I'm paid 9p over minimum wage. I work bloody hard to make sure everyone has a good experience. This past year has been awful. I'm giving it another year and then I'm done.
Good service is hard work. You've either got it or you haven't. You have to give a shit, or at least appear as if you do. People expect a hell of a lot from people who are paid sod all. Thank fuck for tips.

I think you're sort of right, but also I think people have lost track of the true cost of things. There's a culture of wanting things cheap and wanting things now.

Agree look at the cost of clothing & flying.

Hospitality is also a young industry & surely we an ageing population this is going to become of an issue exacerbated by Brexit as there won't be enough young people prepared to work in bad conditions for low pay.