The UK has just joined a select club of countries that have decided to limit immigration based upon a number of rules linked to diploma and salary.
Whereas I can understand some of the reasoning behind it, my purpose is not to comment on the politics of the decision.
As a hospitality expert having worked in various countries in Europe, I feel sorry for the customers.
I also feel sorry for the all the fantastic members of staff in all hospitality companies in the UK and in many other countries too.
Because this decision is denigrating the great work all these people do every day. Not only do they provide service, serve meals, brings drinks to your table, but they also listen to lonely customers, bring moments of joy to umpteen people every day. How many people will go to a café, to a bar or to a restaurant to find some personal attention, to experience some warmth?
I feel sorry for our customers, because our industry is one of passion. You need to love this job to do it well and to do it every day. Only then can you bring happiness to the customers.
The vast majority of our staff members genuinely want to work, sometimes temporarily, in this business. The vast majority of staff will feel real pleasure in helping others. More than making money, they also have a social function.
With this decision, the government has decided, in an industry where already many thousands of job vacancies cannot be filled, that residents will have to fill these positions.
Nobody seems to have asked the question as to why all these jobs were filled by people coming, largely, from outside the UK. There must be a reason for it : lack of interest, no good schooling, no gratification and more. And we must admit that in our industry, not everyone is employable, because as I mentioned before, you must really want to do this job.
The question is not if these residents, providing we can find any, want to work in this industry but how we can eventually force some unemployed people to take up hospitality jobs.
I use the word force with purpose, as today some people in the UK, currently unemployed, are unwilling to enter the industry.
In that respect, hospitality is no different from the care sector, where approx. 100’000 jobs are not filled today in the UK. Similar numbers exist in other countries.
For years, our industry has been neglected by governments all over Europe.
Hospitality education has been largely denigrated and for most today, entering hospitality is a last choice, not a first choice.
Imagine going to your dad and saying you want to become a chef. Imagine the same message telling your dad you want to go and work for a bank.
Politically also, hospitality has been managed by ministers as a side occupation. How many European countries today have a minister for Tourism and Hospitality?
They all know 1 job out of 10 is for Tourism and Hospitality ; equally they all know that tourism represents a large part of GNP.
For the UK Tourism alone represents approx. 25Billion£ per year (UK ONS 2017 numbers), yet there is no minister for tourism.
And the same is valid for most other European countries.
Yet this industry is, with construction, generally the stepping stone leading to social status, to respect in society, to a position in the economy.
This industry is giving opportunities to people that would otherwise have none, giving opportunities to students to work whilst studying.
And because this industry is providing these opportunities, most people do it with gusto, with pleasure.
And that brings me back to being sorry for the future customers.
What about pleasure when we start forcing people in this or that job, as we all know you can only do something with passion if this is your free choice.
Today already some countries will push their young ones into career paths only based on the numbers they achieve in school.
However, I know many people that did not shine in class but discovered their passion later.
My reasoning here is that we should look carefully at broad measures like that and look more closely at the reality of the market, and especially the employment market.
Similar measures will only work if and when the government is also promoting these jobs in a more positive manner and at the same time review the scholar system so that younger people can be proud to study in any direction they choose.
By doing that we should not forget that promoting hospitality jobs with the parents is essential for young people to want to join the industry and find fulfilment in these careers.
The other takeaway from this is that developing people’s skills will become even more important as we go further, because we will have to train and develop a growing number of individuals that may not have thought about our industry as a career possibility.
There will therefore be a need for short courses and for more comprehensive training in the future.
Under those circumstances, some people may find themselves with little choice but to enter our industry and it will be for employers, with the help of governments, to invest in people and skills development, so that the effects of these changes do not negatively affect our business.
And ultimately it will be for all partners in hospitality to provide the staff with better working conditions, better wages and better work/life balance.
Pierre