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?

Ah well then, let's not bother trying trying improve working terms and conditions for those in hospitality then. 🤷‍♀️
Who cares if the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid have a living wage wage decent terms of employment, as long as we can go for a cheap meal at least once a week it doesn't matter.

/sarcasm obviously

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.

Ah well then, let's not bother trying trying improve working terms and conditions for those in hospitality then

Or, lets push for a National Living Wage across all low paid sectors and improve the working terms for all low paid workers so they are able to put money back in to the economy, largely in the hospitality industry.

@C8H10N4O2
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.

This!

I’d rather be a cleaner than go back to hospitality, I’m glad that so many business local to me who I know to be owned by terrible people are struggling. They reap what they sow. Treat your labourers like scum, then your business deserves to fail. If you want people to sell their lives for poverty wages, you can’t afford to be in business, owning a business isn’t an entitlement. Allowing your customers to treat your labourers like trash? Not happening. Those days are over. 🎉

@C8H10N4O2

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.

This is spot on

Or, lets push for a National Living Wage across all low paid sectors and improve the working terms for all low paid workers so they are able to put money back in to the economy, largely in the hospitality industry.
So what exactly is wrong with starting with hospitality? There is a need for better wages and there is a shortage of staff.

This thread shows there's people who value the ability to regularly eat out cheaply more than those in hospitality being paid an appropriate wage, because the idea of prices rising to give a decent wage is deemed awful / makes eating out only for high end places or rich people.

Since when was there an entitlement to eat out regularly as cheaply as possible?

Capitalism is based on low cost workers, whilst it is fine not to like this the alternatives have proved to be even less appealing.

Even the way things are handled in other countries in Western Europe? The UK model isn't the norm, it's an outlier. There are other ways that have been shown to work. To be sure that would involve a model that is high tax, but if you actually see benefits from the taxes you pay, that should be acceptable to voters.

@Essentialgarage

But where does it stop, increase NMW and every other wage has to increase by the same amount, that also means employer NI and Pension contributions increase for everyone you employ.

This also means public sector workers need an increased payrise so that means we all need to pay higher taxes which in turn means we have less disposal income as the tax rise would need to be higher than the income rise.
Capitalism is based on low cost workers, whilst it is fine not to like this the alternatives have proved to be even less appealing.

This also means public sector workers need an increased payrise so that means we all need to pay higher taxes That's an overly simplistic view of complex economics.

There are also areas of the Public Sector where the wage stagnation affecting some in public and private sectors hasn't occurred.

@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.

Employers wouldn’t be able to get away with paying minimum wage unless there were plenty of people willing to work for it. Now there aren’t plenty of those people. Why? Because there aren’t any foreign workers. It’s cause and effect, not myth.

@Carbara

I’d rather be a cleaner than go back to hospitality, I’m glad that so many business local to me who I know to be owned by terrible people are struggling. They reap what they sow. Treat your labourers like scum, then your business deserves to fail. If you want people to sell their lives for poverty wages, you can’t afford to be in business, owning a business isn’t an entitlement. Allowing your customers to treat your labourers like trash? Not happening. Those days are over. 🎉

I agree - I often find myself shouting this at the radio whenever someone is moaning about a "shortage of workers" - there's no such fucking thing.

@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.

But if you are a worker from a country where their minimum wage is less than half of the UKs it makes sense to travel to the UK, work as much as possible and save or send money home. You may not mind saving on accommodation costs by living in a house share. Meanwhile, trying to have a normal family life here on these wages is not so easy.

If there was a country I could move to freely where I could at least double my salary, I'd certainly be up for that for a few years - sadly that's not open to us in the UK.

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

It may be formally classified as unskilled but IMO that badly needs to change. Hospitality work is hard, not just physically but in the sense of customer relations and service. It's obvious as a customer when a member of hospitality staff is good at their job and when they aren't, and I personally give my custom to places where the staff are good. I always hope this means they're being paid better, although I don't know if that's actually true and suspect it isn't.

There is no such thing as a labour shortage in a reasonably open market.

If the service cannot be provided at cost X (because the business cannot attract workers at that pay level), then cost will rise until it can.

A new equilibrium may be reached where we have a smaller, more expensive hospitality industry. It may also be that companies are incentivised to invest in technology that reduces their labour needs. Or it may be that the market bears the new higher cost of providing hospitality services. Or some mix of both.

Either way, a chronic reliance on cheap imported labour not something that was sustainable forever.

I do agree with you OP that people in this industry should be paid more. I worry about inflation as well.

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

Market forces. Short supply increases price. It’s Economics 101.

I always hate how these things turn into image of immigrants living in subpar conditions, eating dry bread and send all the money back to their super poor eu countries. Most of us are not living like that. We just living to our means.

@JarJarQ

Why do people always say “why pay over £3 for a cup of coffee when I can make one at home for pennies”?

But you’re not at home. Unless you’re dragging the coffee maker, sink and fridge behind you on a rope the only option is to go without.

Or make your own coffee before you leave and bring it in a flask😊

Tipping in the US is 15or 20% - people are very cautious with their money here

I think it's going to be a rocky but interesting time until we reach that new equilibrium 👀

BREXIT is definitely a factor.

DS has worked in hospitality since he was sixteen. There was a direct correlation between low wages and how well he was treated overall (H&S/shouty managers) His best two jobs (moved for uni) paid £9 - £10 per hour and were in small family run enterprises.

I don't think there should be any age difference in NMW and also NMW should actually be the proper living wage which is £9.50 an hour or £10.85 an hour in London.

If everyone was paid at this rate then taxpayers would be footing far lower Tax credit/UC bills. Yes, some businesses that are not financially viable without taking the piss out of staff and taxpayers would crumble and go, but we would be left with a far better system.

It makes me really mad to be subsidising shit wages with my taxes. I would much rather go somewhere where people are paid properly and I pay a bit more for what I buy, or the owner is a little less fucking greedy.

@WeAllHaveWings

When I had my first part time job at 17 it was 4 hours on a Sunday morning on a supermarket deli counter (I just served customers as was just a student and wasn't trained on using/cleaning the slicer etc). I earned £25 for 4 hours. The shop was only open until lunchtime as it was a Sunday and Sunday morning was premium rates.

That was 35 years ago!!! A 17 year old today working 4 hours on a Sunday would earn less today £18.48 and it would cost them much more than 35 years ago in bus fares to get there. It is ridiculous.

You were incredibly well paid! My pay was £2.88 an hour in a shop a fair bit more recently than that!

@TheoMeo

Tipping in the US is 15or 20% - people are very cautious with their money here

The way minimum wage and taking tips into account works is horrible imho

@TheoMeo often a service charge is added to bills over here. Unfortunately many employers use that to top up wages. AKA as trunc.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I always hate how these things turn into image of immigrants living in subpar conditions, eating dry bread and send all the money back to their super poor eu countries. Most of us are not living like that. We just living to our means.

This isn’t about people like you who have moved here and made it their home. It’s about fruit pickers, hospitality workers and those in the construction industry where one member of a family comes, lives as cheaply as possible to send money home where it’s worth a lot more and then leaves again. You’re comparing apples and pears. All you have in common in not being British.