The latest Hospitality Employment Index report from Caterer.com and People 1st shows that whilst the number of UK hospitality jobs has remained stable over the last year, the number of applications has leapt by 17% with more than 1,000,000 over the quarter. All areas of the country saw an increase in applications ranging from 35% in London and 43% in the North West, to huge increases of 71% in Scotland and 114% in Wales.
The quarterly report, produced by leading specialist hospitality recruitment site Caterer.com, and People 1st, the sector skills council for the hospitality, passenger transport, travel and tourism in the UK, also contains specific analysis of the hotel sector, where applications averaged62 per job across Hotel Management, Housekeeping, Porter, Reception – Concierge and Reservations Manager roles.
Although the hospitality industry has suffered skills shortages for some time, these soaring application levels do not herald an easy time for hospitality recruiters. Brian Wisdom, Chief Executive, People 1st explained:
“Despite these high levels of competition, some businesses still struggle torecruit people with the skills and personalities they need. Within the hotelindustry, not only does this affect overall productivity levels but it also hasa knock-on effect to labour turnover. This results in an on-going need toreplace staff who lack the motivation and commitment to remain with thecompany for a prolonged period.”
Although the level of competition for roles has risen within hotels, so has the proportion of hotel employers reporting that they have vacancies, hard-to-fill vacancies and skills shortage vacancies, illustrating that few people stay in the industry long term. In fact, one fifth of the existing hotel workforce leaves each year.To make matters tougher still, there have been 154,000 new hotel jobs created throughout the UK since 2010, partially reflected in postings at catering recruitment site recruiters.caterer.com.
Ian Burke, Website Director, Caterer.com, commented: “Whilst industry skills shortages make life difficult for employers, they canposition themselves to ensure that they recruit and retain staff that fit theirdesired profile. The question for hospitality employers now is how to attract and retain themost relevant candidates. There is noone simple solution, but a key component is to have a strong and meaningfulemployer brand, something which an increasing number of hospitalityemployers are successfully embracing.”
The Hospitality Employment Index is available to download free of charge at: www.caterer.com/hei
About Caterer.com (www.caterer.com)
Established in 2001, Caterer.com has pioneered online recruitment for the hospitality industry. Working with hotels, restaurants, pubs, bars and food services companies across the UK, it helps small and large companies to improve their recruitment and retention processes.
Caterer.com is part of Totaljobs Group Ltd, the UK’s largest and fastest growing online recruitment company, comprising 10 job board businesses, which between them carry over 220,000 jobs, and attract over 3 million jobseekers every month who generate 1.4 million applications.
For Further information, please contact:
Fabian Caton +44 (0)20 7572 4293 fabian.caton@totaljobsgroup.com
Kathy Dyball +44 (0)20 7572 4181 kathy.dyball@caterer.com