Crisis in recruiting Chefs hitting Hotels and Restaurants

Monday 24 August 2015

Hotels and restaurants in the island have been hit so hard by the new population licence controls that the lack of chefs in Jersey has hit crisis point.

On Friday there were 149 jobs on the gov.je website in the Hospitality sector compared to just 30 vacancies in Banking, Finance, Legal and Insurance. 42 of the 149 hospitality jobs were for Chefs.

Jersey Recruitment, the recruitment agency for the hospitality and tourism industry, and part of Jersey Hospitality, has 56 vacancies at present, many of which they say they will be unable to fill because of the population licence controls which focus on entitled to work applicants only - leaving them with a lack of available and experienced candidates.

One local restaurant, The Navigator in Rozel, has been trying to fill two Chef vacancies. Manager, Aigars Skrivelis says he hopes that he has now managed to find the staff he needs but the situation across the island is like it has never been before, “It’s a crisis at the moment trying to get decent chefs. Every single restaurant and hotel needs staff.

"The problem is because of the changes in the licensing system, there are only a certain number of people in Jersey and even if we have some good qualified people coming over we struggle to get them because they need five years’ residency. “ Mr Aigars said the situation for chefs has been made worse by the fact many youngsters aren’t training to become chefs.

Managing Director of Seymour Hotels, David Seymour, agreed, he said it’s been difficult to get staff since the restrictions came in, “It’s put huge amounts of pressure on everyone. It impacts on the business when we need to recruit chefs with specialist skills and they’re not available in the local labour pool, or we have a position in housekeeping and local people don’t necessarily want to fill those positions.”

The situation could also start having an impact on efforts being made by the new Visit Jersey tourism body to attract new types of tourist to the island, in particular when it comes to customer-facing staff with the right language skills.

“Going forward I’d like to think that Visit Jersey and the States of Jersey will take into consideration the aspirations of everyone trying to diversify the economy," says Mr Seymour.

"Within tourism we are trying to diversify the market base but if that means bringing in a different type of customer whose needs are different from the type we have today then clearly we are going to need the staff to back it up. We need to react to market situations. If we are held back it’s not doing anybody any good.”

Businesses need a licence to employ anyone with less than five years' residency. It's part of the Government's commitment to limit immigration.

David Seymour says they work with schools and other bodies such as Skills Jersey to encourage local people into the hospitality industry and he understands what the Government is trying to achieve, "I have every sympathy with the Government, I think the focus is correct, but at the same time what is happening is it's not necessarily helping those businesses who are trying to move forward. It's a difficult balancing act."