UK’s older workers help fill the hospitality labour gap

UK hospitality businesses are increasingly turning to older workers to plug staffing shortages that have hit the industry in the wake of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, according to an industry survey.

Some 19 per cent of the hospitality businesses surveyed said the proportions of over-50s in their organisations had increased in the past year.

Workers aged 50 and above now account for 25.2 per cent of the 2.2mn-strong hospitality workforce, according to estimates compiled by recruiter Caterer.com. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that before 2020, over-50s made up less than a fifth of the industry’s workforce.

The shifting demographics in the hospitality industry indicate how managers have had to look beyond the traditional labour pool to meet staffing needs in recent years.

The hospitality industry has lost 121,000 EU workers — 41 per cent of the pre-pandemic total — in the past two years. In August, the vacancy rate across the industry stood at 7.7 per cent — at least two percentage points higher than any other sector — although the rate has improved slightly in recent months.

Robert Richardson, chief executive of the Institute of Hospitality, the industry body for managers in the sector, said the tight labour market had forced bars, restaurants and hotels to “think outside the box” about who they tried to recruit.

Some 62 per cent of hospitality businesses said they were hiring more inclusively to resolve labour shortages and 25 per cent said older workers would be important in overcoming the sector’s staffing shortages, according to the research, which was based on a survey of 100 hospitality hiring managers and 500 employees, along with an analysis of job adverts.

Kathy Dyball, director at Caterer.com, said a mix of Brexit, the pandemic and the cost of living crisis had combined to bring about the “most dramatic transformation” in the hospitality workforce she had witnessed.

“While it will take time to address long-established labour shortages, it’s encouraging to see employers broadening the range of candidates they’re targeting,” Dyball said, adding that more needed to be done to “highlight” roles “that can suit people of any working age”.

In July, McDonald’s UK restaurants launched a recruitment drive targeting older workers, featuring an advert with a silver-haired employee who was not “the retiring type”. Dame Sharon White, John Lewis chair, has also called for older employees who left the labour force during the pandemic to be encouraged back to work to help plug staff shortages.

Economic inactivity has been on the rise among Britons aged between 50 and 64 years old over the past two years. Nearly 28 per cent of that age group are economically inactive, compared with 25.5 per cent before the pandemic.

Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies, a think-tank, said while the “great unretirement” was not yet fully under way as economic inactivity was still rising, he predicted that the “cost of living crisis should lead to more older people looking for work to top up their income”.