Annex 4: Workforce and Skills Challenges for Hospitality
The Hospitality workforce dashboard is a monthly snapshot of the industry, covering key data, initiatives led by the industry over the month, member commentary, future considerations and the common pain points.
On this page
Below is the text version of the image above.
In February 2023:
Key indicators – national
- 80% of respondents say that they are not fully staffed.
- 77% are recruiting for high level roles.
- 90% is the percentage of employers saying it is difficult or extremely difficult to recruit for senior roles.
- 86% are recruiting for junior level roles.
- 56% is the percentage of employers saying it is extremely difficult to recruit for junior roles.
- 46% are saying that recruiting for staff, has worsened or worsened significantly over the past 3 months.
Key indicators – Auckland
- 82% of respondents replied No to the question, is your business fully staffed?
- 78% are recruiting for mid-senior level roles (past 2 months).
- 93% are recruiting for junior roles.
- 88% of employers saying it is difficult, or extremely difficult, to recruit for Senior roles (57% for Junior roles).
- 37% of respondents answered worsened or worsened significantly to the question, has recruiting for senior staff improved (or not) over the past 3 months?
Most regular feedback
- NZers not applying for roles and inability to recruit migrant workers causing stress.
- Business unable to operate to full capacity. Need strong summer trade to survive through the Winter.
- As labour costs rise, increasing difficult balancing business viability and remuneration.
Member commentary
“We have opted to reduce trading hours, and take on more hours ourselves, rather than hire. Our experience in hiring over the past 18 months has be the work in our 7 years trading. The costs, time and mental endurance required in training someone for a role, for them to leave a few months later – poached by competitors, or just deciding its too hard, is simply not worth it”.
“staffing at the moment is a huge issues. Every day we are seeing more and more roles come up with no relief. We have had to shorten our operating hours”.
“virtually impossible to find anyone. We’ve given up on trying to find chefs and have accepted that we’ll have to think outside the square with kitchen staff. Really hard to find anyone who is good”.
“wages have jumped hugely due to competition and the small pool of hospo workers and along with rising costs, its becoming a very stressful and hard industry to worn and continue to operate in for small owner operators especially. We really need some support and help in getting more checks in particular to NZ – most of us are suffering from exhaustion, stress and are facing significant financial hardship is things don’t change soon”.