Restaurants want British waiting staff. They just can’t get them

When Yotam Ottolenghi slashed the opening hours at some of his London restaurants last year, the celebrity chef blamed an inability to recruit enough staff.

He is not alone in struggling to find enough workers as pubs, restaurants and hotel owners are running short across the country .

According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the hospitality industry is scrambling to fill more than 100,000 vacancies, which account for more than 10pc of all unfilled roles in the UK.

Even two of London's most luxurious hotels, The Dorchester and The Savoy, have been held back by a lack of staff, warning that it is making it harder for them to cater to their wealthy clientele.

It comes amid a wider labour crisis across the UK, as productivity growth is at its slowest since the 18th century.

That has been fuelled by a broader worklessness crisis, as more and more people are neither in employment nor looking for work.

However, when looking at the hospitality sector, industry experts are pointing to a different issue entirely – a shortage of youngsters .

Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UK Hospitality, says: "The birth rate fell off a cliff around the millennium so we always knew we were going to have 200,000 fewer 18 to 24-year-olds entering the jobs market between 2020 and 2024."

Charlotte Maulik, director of The Finch's Arms in Oakham, Rutland, says that she now occasionally experiences not receiving a single CV for an entry-level position.

"I don't think it's as attractive to the younger people coming through, the school leavers," she says.

The consequence of fewer young people entering the workforce has been exacerbated by a decline in European workers, many who left the country post-Brexit.

While net migration to the UK has soared to record highs since the referendum, hospitality jobs have proven to be less attractive for new arrivals, according to The Migration Observatory.

Rishi Sunak's move to raise the salary requirement for hiring overseas skilled workers from £26,200 to £38,700 has also made it more difficult for companies to import staff, bosses say.

As a result, those running pubs, restaurants and hotels have been left pondering how to appeal to domestic workers.

Yet the issue that many businesses are discovering is the fact that few British people want to be waiting tables or pulling pints.

"The unemployed and the economically inactive have never been drawn to our sector, "says Brendan Padfield, owner of The Unruly Pig in Bromeswell, Suffolk.

"We had the European diaspora come in post Tony Blair, and frankly they were the best thing since sliced bread for hospitality because the Brits won't work in hospitality."

Part of the problem is cultural, says Chris Harber, a lawyer who helps hospitality firms recruit from abroad.

"I think it's fairly systemic snobbery," says Harber. "[Hospitality] is seen a little bit as being just like a transient job, and there's a misunderstanding from an educator's perspective where it's only seen as a career of last resort to a certain degree."

Those who pursue work in the industry are still not viewed with the recognition they would have in countries such as France and Italy, he adds.

"Things like cafe culture have only really been a big part of British society for 15 to 20 years," says Harber. "The idea of going in and sitting in a cafe and chewing the fat with your friends for an hour, strangely is a very modern concept in Britain."

Others argue that the industry has struggled to shake a reputation for low pay and a poor work-life balance.

"The thing with hospitality is that it always struggles naturally with the fact that you are always going to be working unsociable hours," says Harber.

"I could be the highest-skilled chef in the world, I could be a three-Michelin-star chef, I'm still going to be working late into the night, working weekends. The hours are exceptionally long."

Padfield adds: "If you're a family man and you're doing delivery driving, you can get home by 8pm as opposed to working in hospitality. Some would make that judgement for understandable reasons and say, 'I'd rather spend time with the kids.'"

Attempts are also being made to shed the reputation of restaurants and pubs being difficult workplaces, as popularised by the likes of Gordon Ramsay in the 2000s.

"In most kitchens now, certainly that I've been in across the country, raising your voice or any form of aggressive behaviour is a serious offence," says Veryan Palmer, director of The Headland Hotel in Newquay, Cornwall. "A lot of senior chefs are actually realising that teams get on better if you don't do that."

Amid growing reports of staff shortages, government ministers have sought to roll out measures to tackle the problem.

This includes this year's rise in the National Living Wage and trials of so-called boot camps to help train unemployed workers.

However, these initiatives are still fresh and post-Covid challenges are still lingering, says Nicholls.

"It's taken us time because not only did you close the outlets but you also closed the catering colleges, the schools for vocational training, and you didn't have the apprenticeships," she says. "So you haven't been able to invest in that pipeline of people being trained to come through."

Pandemic-linked challenges aside, some argue Britain's hospitality sector struggles amid a longstanding lack of talent, particularly for more upmarket venues.

"Trying to find a very skilled chef to cook at the higher end is far from straightforward, particularly outside London," says Padfield.

Whether the problem will improve under Labour or the Tories is another question.

Both parties have vowed to boost economic growth should they form the next government, which will inevitably rely on the hospitality sector thriving.

However, pubs and restaurants will hope ministers can help them secure the staff to do so.