Hotels offered free staff for a month

Thursday 30 January 2014

Hotels and restaurants will be able to employ newly-trained staff cost-free for a month under a scheme to get people into the hospitality trade.

The Back to Work Hospitality Campaign offers people a four-week course in hospitality skills after which the States will pay their new employers the minimum wage rate for the first four weeks of employment. The combination of training and employment subsidy has been designed by the Social Security department to make the programme attractive to the unemployed and to the hospitality industry.

The scheme is only open to jobseekers who have completed the training programme, or who have been looking for work for six months or more and 70 have begun the training programme already.

A spokesman for the hospitality sector has welcomed the move, saying it could help get local people into jobs in the tourist sector.

Jersey Hospitality Association Chief Executive Gerald Fletcher said: “The tourism industry has a wide range of vacancies this season and it would be wonderful if they could be mostly filled by Island residents.

“I hope that – with the important skills required and the positive attitude needed to work in tourism – jobseekers are inspired to join.

“Jersey is justifiably proud of its hospitality industry and the great contribution it makes to island life, but it is only as good as the service that our visitors receive and for that we rely on great staff.”

Under the proposals, the Social Security department will pay the minimum wage, including Social Security contributions, for 25 to 40 hours’ work per week for four weeks but employers can choose to pay a higher hourly rate, and for additional hours, if they want to.