Restaurant Staffing Report
Staffing at a glance
The staffing challenge in the hospitality sector has never been more acute, with the Coronavirus pandemic, Brexit and the increase in National Living Wage levels twinned with rising costs and falling consumer confidence impacting on a business’ ability to employ the personnel it requires.
A recent Business Confidence Survey from CGA by NIQ and Fourth found that 91% of hospitality leaders are concerned about staff shortages and 92% by increases in the National Living Wage. So serious is the problem that the Government is even considering creating hospitality ‘boot camps’ to help unemployed people to find work in the sector.
With this in mind, Restaurant conducted its own survey of 150 restaurant businesses, large and small, to get a snapshot of the challenges the industry currently faces and understand the tactics businesses are taking to address these challenges. In the report below you can see the results of the survey as well as read about the different options that are available to hospitality businesses looking to recruit and retain staff, including apprenticeships, recruiting from overseas, and encouraging job progression.
- KEY STATS
- 82% of hospitality businesses are currently looking for staff
- 38% of business owners say their staff are working longer hours than they would like
- 60% of businesses believe Brexit has had a significant impact on their ability to hire staff
- 87% are turning to students to fill the skills gap
- 56% of businesses offer their staff free meals
- 42% of businesses are having to employ under-experienced team members
The squeeze on staffing
Where did it all go so wrong? Staffing restaurants has always had its challenges but Brexit and the pandemic - a gruesome twosome if ever there was one - have landed the sector with its worst-ever staffing crisis. Restaurant operators across the country - and indeed the world, this isn’t only a UK issue - have been forced to reduce their menus and opening hours, scale back expansion plans and, in some extreme cases, shutter sites.
In truth, the crisis had been bubbling beneath the surface for decades. The sector is a victim of its own success with the restaurant industry having grown exponentially over the past few decades as eating out has shifted from being an occasional treat to something many people do every day. As the industry has evolved, it has become more skills intensive. Alongside this, catering has a long-standing image problem with both front and back-of-house roles viewed as a stopgap rather than ‘serious’ long term career options. This is at least partly the fault of the industry itself, which traditionally hasn’t done the best job at communicating what it can offer and, in some cases, at least, has fallen short when it comes to pay, working conditions and job progression.
Against this backdrop came Brexit in 2016 seeing off many young EU workers, and shortly afterwards Covid-19 hit. The enforced hiatus saw many more foreign nationals return home and also caused a mass exodus from the industry with staff turning to other sectors for a more reliable source of income and perceived better working conditions. When restaurants reopened, the lack of staff was so severe that it threatened to derail the sector’s recovery. Things have improved slightly since then, but the crisis has forever changed the labour market with restaurants now having to work much harder to attract and retain the right staff. As we will see over the course of this guide, working conditions have improved dramatically, there is more of an emphasis on training and development and pay is higher than it has ever been.
The staffing landscape
There can be little doubt that businesses are feeling the pinch when it comes to recruitment, with 82% of respondents saying that they are currently looking to fill roles in their business. Moreover, some businesses report that they are significantly understaffed at the moment because of a lack of ability to find the right candidates.
Q. What percentage of your required workforce remains unfilled?
This staff shortage is impacting businesses – and existing staff members - in a number of different ways.
Q. If you are understaffed, how has this affected your business?
Rising minimum wage
The rise in the National Living Wage has played a part in the abilities of restaurants to recruit staff. The recent Business Confidence Survey from CGA by NIQ and Fourth found that 92% of businesses are concerned by increases in the National Living Wage.
Moreover, the hospitality sector is being hit harder than others when it comes to wage increases. UK hospitality employees received an average pay rise of 9.5% in the past year, compared to the national average of 6.6%, according to a Hospitality Hiring Insider report from recruitment platform Caterer.com. In May this year it revealed that there were a record 1,700 jobs on its website offering a salary of more than £50,000. According to its data, pub employees received the highest pay rises compared with any other area of the hospitality sector at 11.3%, which increases to 11.8% for those in entry level roles, compared with 10.8% for those in senior and experienced roles.
Rising wages are a big factor in restaurants struggling to turn a profit. Opheem chef-patron Aktar Islam recently revealed that his Michelin-starred Birmingham restaurant only made £320 in the first quarter of 2023, citing the skills shortage that has been caused by the pandemic and Brexit. “We’re having to hire two people to do one person’s job and pay them over the odds," he says.
Brexit
The UK’s leaving the EU in January 2020 continues to have an impact on businesses more than three years on. While some respondents (22%) say it hasn’t had any impact on their ability to recruit staff the majority say the political decision has made it harder to do so.
Q. How much has Brexit changed your ability to recruit staff?
Recruiting staff from overseas has long been a practice in the hospitality industry but companies’ ability to do so since Brexit has been hampered by new rules on immigration that have resulted from Brexit. Many within the hospitality sector have long been calling for chefs to be added to the shortage occupation list, which makes it easier for businesses to recruit people from abroad in sectors deemed to have a short supply of domestic workers, but so far these requests have fallen on deaf ears in Government. In June, trade body UKHospitality reiterated the request in evidence submitted to the Migration Advisory Committee, describing it as ‘a simple move that can have enormous benefits’.
Daytime desk jobs and working from home is the new normal, and an ever-evolving and expanding transport industry has also attracted hospitality workers in their droves, according to international recruitment company Goldstar Chefs. The end of free UE movement and the post Brexit immigration system has made it less attractive for Europeans to come and work in the UK..
Our research shows that since Brexit, only 25% of respondents have recruited staff from overseas.
Q. Since Brexit, have you recruited staff from overseas?
Recruitment challenges
It’s no surprise that trade bodies and industry representatives are calling for chefs to be added to the shortage occupation list. Back of house roles are the hardest to recruit for among the respondents, followed by front of house staff and those at head office level.
Q. Which roles are the hardest to recruit for?
As a result, businesses are having to look beyond their traditional target demographic when looking to recruit, with students being the preferred choice for the majority of businesses.
Q. Have you employed people from specific backgrounds to help fill roles?
This recruitment of students has impacted on the experience level within a business, with 42% of respondents saying they are having to employ people with less experience and spend time and money on training them up, and 19% saying that they are relying on much younger staff than previously.
Q. How have the current challenges around staffing affected the experience level within your teams?
Source: https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Info/Staffing-Report
