Bars and restaurants are struggling to hire enough staff, and some cannot fully reopen in May after thousands of workers have left the sector.
The owner of the venue is expecting great demand from customers, but due to the lack of staff, it may be necessary to limit business hours.
The numbers suggest that more than one in ten UK hospitality workers left the industry last year.
The job site Caterer.com said it was due to a pandemic and Brexit.
Some have managed to find alternative jobs, but a high percentage may have left the UK altogether, recruiters said.
As a result, many hospitality workers have been fired in the last 12 months, but restaurant owners now find it difficult to fill the space.
Famous chef Michael Caines is one of those who finds it difficult to hire.
He runs two restaurants on the Cornish coast and runs a hotel in Exmas. Exmas beach bars and restaurants will also open.
He is currently hiring 20 new staff throughout the group.
“Undoubtedly, hiring is a challenge,” he said.
“All businesses are very busy. For the next three or four months, the hotel is fully booked and we are desperately trying to hire enough staff.”
Mr. Caines said Brexit and the pandemic left European workers and prevented them from returning home, but said another issue was the number of workers still temporarily dismissed.
They are unwilling to change employers while waiting for them to return to work.
“Many people are very worried about quitting a job that qualifies for a furl and getting a new job that doesn’t qualify for a furl if there is another blockade,” he explained.
“That’s why I’m a little nervous from an employee’s point of view.”
Caines wants the role to be fulfilled more easily when students graduate from college and start looking for a summer job.
Restaurants and bars are allowed to eat and drink outdoors from April 12th, and indoor dining will resume from May 17th. And many UK hospitality facilities hope that stagnant demand and a UK-focused holiday season will lead to summer bumpers.
As a result, hiring was an “increasing problem,” said Kate Nicholls, CEO of UK Hospitality. In some areas, such as London, it’s more serious than in others, and some venues may have a hard time reopening, she added.
Industry groups said it was the most difficult to fill the chef’s vacancies. However, restaurant owners report a shortage of staff in all sorts of roles.
According to specialist recruiter Caterer.com, the number of seats available on the company’s website has increased by more than 85% in the past few weeks and currently advertises 22,000 roles.
But it pointed out Numbers from the National Bureau of Statistics It suggests that 355,000 fewer people are employed in hospitality than they were a year ago. Prior to the pandemic, approximately 3.2 million people were employed in sectors such as bars, restaurants and hotels.
Neil Pattison, director of Caterer.com, said:
“But the combination of pandemic impacts and Brexit can pose significant recruitment challenges to this sector, and the skills shortages we once faced can begin to recur.”
‘Employment security’
One 42-year-old father, Colon Maher, turned his back on a full-time hospitality job after the job was exhausted because of Covid.
He has 20 years of experience in bars and restaurants, but last December he got a full-time customer service job at Sky.
He now says that something very special must come in for him to return to full-time hospitality.
“I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for 15 to 20 years, from bartenders to bar managers to chefs, so it’s an industry I love and know inside out.”
“But during the pandemic, I realized I was out of work and had to find some employment security. Now that I can work every Monday through Friday, I have no plans to change that now.”
But he isn’t completely behind the industry. To find a weekend job, I’m enrolled in Coople, a professional hospitality recruiting site.
“Personally, I think it will take three to four years for the hospitality industry to recover,” he says.
“I’m in a stage of life where I can’t afford the opportunity to reappear. I don’t think many pubs will even reopen.”
“But if this doesn’t work, I know there’s something I can count on.”
Prior to Brexit, much of the UK hospitality workforce consisted of foreign workers, including the EU. Hundreds of thousands of foreign workers have left the UK It’s unclear if they will come back last year.
Luke Garnsworthy, who owns Oxfordshire’s hotel and upscale restaurant Crokers Henley and Hertfordshire’s Crokers Tring, said he was struggling to hire enough staff to fully open the restaurant next month.
He wants to hire front desk staff and waiters as well as chefs.
“I advertised, and I thought I was netting a fish-filled sea, but that wasn’t the case at all.”
Garnsworthy wants to hire 45-50 staff at Henry’s venue, which currently has only 12 people.
Members of the senior team play a role as needed, but he said the restaurant is likely to be open only five days a week instead of seven days a week.
According to Garnsworthy, recruitment in the hospitality industry has always been a challenge before the pandemic, but “it’s definitely getting worse now.”
“The country is looking down on their noses because we are perceived as unskilled … and young people are not interested.”
It’s a lot of work, but at least I want them to know that the “era of Gordon Ramsay’s cry” is over.
Restaurant owner and Masterchef’s The Professionals finalist Sven-Hanson Britt also runs several venues.
He said hospitality staff turnover is usually high, but he also said that temporarily laid off staff are sticking to existing employers.
“People stay calm, so there is no decline in talent.
“It’s very difficult at this point and it’s hard to find someone in a senior position.”
Brit wants to recruit pastry chefs, chocolatiers and sommeliers.
“I can’t seem to find anyone in the field,” he added.
We hired a lot of staff in October, but the application rate this time is much lower.
“Some businesses closed or went bankrupt, and people felt disappointed with their employers or the industry as a whole,” he said.
“I know many people who have moved on to something else.”