Inflexible hospitality sector faces continued labour crisis, as job vacancies surge past one million

By James Lawrence

Published: 14 September, 2021

The UK’s hospitality industry must embrace more flexible working patterns if it intends to survive, a leading commentator has claimed.

Chris Sanderson, CEO of the hospitality recruitment app Limber, said that the pandemic had created a mass disconnect between employers and employees, stifling the nation’s economic recovery.

“The jobs market could be a lot more robust if employers ditched their legacy mindsets when it comes to employment contracts and allowed people to work on their terms,” Sanderson said.

“Within the hospitality sector, for example, companies are struggling to recruit up and down the country because they have not adjusted quickly enough to the must-have requirements for many younger people after their experiences of the pandemic, namely flexibility, variety and control.”

According to the latest ONS data, the number of job vacancies in June to August 2021 was 1,034,000 – the first time vacancies has risen over 1 million since records began.

The ONS website also claimed that overall, the economy was showing signs of recovery. Nevertheless, the recovery being witnessed across the UK has not been even, with London and the hospitality sector lagging behind other regions and industries.

Jon Astle-Rowe, manager of The Roe Deer in the West Midlands, agreed that only businesses that offered flexible working patterns would thrive in the coming period.

“We employ a large number of staff, but there is no ‘one size fits all’ recruitment policy at the Roe Deer Some employees just work weekends, others are full-time. The days of asking people to work rigid shift patterns are over,” said Rowe.

Printer friendly version