Bars, cafes and restaurants across the UK are continuing to report a lack of staff with many having to operate reduced hours because of the shortages.
A BBC report has highlighted one London-located Michelin-star restaurant that can no longer open at lunchtimes because few of its former staff are available to work.
The founder of Pied à Terre in Charlotte Street, London, David Moore, said the move was necessary to “preserve” his depleted workforce.
He told the broadcaster: “If I slog them to death, in two weeks’ time, I won’t have a restaurant.”
Moore said 800 people applied for a receptionist role in November 2020, but only received seven responses when he re-advertised for the role three weeks ago, and no one made it to the interview.
“I don’t know anybody who is not looking for a kitchen porter,” he added.
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He said Brexit was “definitely the biggest” factor behind staff shortages, and he said the hospitality industry in the UK had depended to a large extent on young people coming from abroad to work in restaurants and bars to gain life experience and new skills.
“[The government] don’t realise the huge commodity we have that they have excluded us from, that keeps this industry moving more than anything else,” he told the BBC.
Prior to the pandemic just three out of his 30-strong workforce were from the UK. His restaurant currently has 12 staff.
He said some workers who were furloughed during lockdown had moved back to their home nations and decided not to return.
“Anecdotally, I have a lot of pals saying they are opening up restaurants and they are expecting their 18 employees to come back and only 12 turn up,” Moore said.
“They don’t say anything because they don’t want to lose their furlough, so they don’t mention anything until the last minute.”
Mark Agnew, manager of Gylly Beach Cafe in Falmouth, Cornwall, said he would be closing two days a week because of staffing shortages.
“The main reason is a severe lack of trained professional chefs, [and] trained front of house,” he said.
“There seems to be a national crisis that we are now feeling the effects of. Brexit I’m sure is a factor within this. Undoubtedly Covid and the continual lockdown, too.”
Itsu boss Julian Metcalfe said the food chain’s “young European chefs” had “now sadly all disappeared” because “they are not allowed in”.
Moore added to calls by Metcalfe for the government to grant 18-month or two-year work visas to people wanting to work in hospitality in the UK. Brexit-enthusiast and Wetherspoon founder Tim Martin made a similar appeal earlier this month.
A government spokesman said it had “implemented an unprecedented package of measures to support businesses” during the pandemic and added it was working with trade body UK Hospitality to “better promote jobs in the sector”.
“We want employers to focus on training and investing in our domestic workforce, rather than relying on labour from abroad. Employers should focus on getting people in the sector who are benefitting from the furlough scheme back to their roles when restrictions end,” a statement added.
According to UK Hospitality, 1.3 million foreign workers left the UK during the pandemic.
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said labour shortages appeared to be a “perennial problem” which had been “aggravated further by many foreign workers not returning to the UK, either because of travel restrictions or their ability to resume work in the UK”.
According to jobs website Indeed Flex hospitality businesses have been forced to increase wages by up to 14% to attract temporary workers amid staff shortages.
The average hourly pay at pubs and restaurants was up 9% for a weekend shift and 5% for a weekday shift in May 2021, compared with the same month in 2019, Indeed Flex found.
Many have forecast the labour issues facing hospitality will worsen after 30 June when the deadline for applying to the EU Settled Status scheme passes.
Currently there are no provisions for low-skilled workers under the new points-based immigration system. As a result, it will be extremely difficult to hire non-British/Irish nationals or EU workers who don’t already have the right to work after the grace period elapses on 30 June.
Chetal Patel, partner at City law firm Bates Wells, said: “The deadline will create enormous problems for businesses in the hospitality and leisure sectors. These businesses are already seeing severe labour shortages. This is set to get significantly worse.”
“EEA workers comprise 7.3% of the UK’s working population. There are entire industry sectors that are wholly dependent on labour from these countries.”
“The Home Office should consider offering a temporary Covid-recovery visa, enabling businesses to hire overseas workers to fill vacancies and help to get the economy back on its feet after the devastating impact of lockdown.”
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“Many employers would like this deadline on the 30th of June to be put off until the economy is back on track.”
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