Ticking Time bomb for restaurants and hotels as staffing shortage worsens

Tuesday 25 August 2015

The Jersey Hospitality Association (JHA) has spoken out about what it says is “a massive situation” regarding the shortage of staff in the sector.

The body which represents nearly 400 restaurants and hoteliers in the island, says it’s become frustrated by the time the government is taking to make changes to the population licence controls which are crippling its businesses.

The sector has been working with the Back to Work scheme to employ locally qualified people into the industry, but it has resulted in very few successful candidates. The hospitality sector employs between 4,000 and 7,000 staff, depending on the season, and Gerald Fletcher, the Chief Executive Officer of the JHA said last year only 99 Back to work employees started in the industry, of which only 49 are still employed.

Mr Fletcher said,  “In the UK you can go to the whole of Europe to find a Chef or member of staff, in Jersey you can only employ someone with five years residency and so now they’re like gold dust. It has caused wage inflation and poaching and has created a shortage of staff across the industry. The Control of Housing and Work Law needs to be reviewed quickly as the Hospitality Industry cannot go on working with controls that are damaging to businesses in the sector.

“The Council of Ministers has four main strategic priorities, one is to grow the economy and Visit Jersey’s remit is to drive growth in visitor numbers. It's about demand and supply, so how can you drive growth when you’re putting unworkable restrictions on the number of staff who will service that growth?”

At present under new regulations to control population, businesses need a licence to employ anyone with less than five year’s residency. On Friday there were 149 hospitality job vacancies advertised on the gov.je website, compared to just 30 in Banking, Finance, Legal and Insurance. 42 of the 149 hospitality jobs were for chefs.