Hospitality wages rise 38% year-on-year

Wages for job postings in the hospitality sector rose 38% last month as business owners struggle to find staff, according to a report by jobseeker site CVLibrary.

The report, which compared data from November 2018, with the same period in 2017, found that hospitality was just one of the nation’s key industries to see hikes in advertised salaries last month.

Average salaries for new roles reached a 12-month high in the hospitality sector, soaring by 38% in November.

Lee Biggins, CV Library’s managing director, said the higher rates of pay are a“direct result of the ongoing struggles that many businesses are currently facing.”

He added that the UK’s “economic uncertainty and a widening skills gap,” have made it difficult to entice candidates away from their current positions.

Employers in the industry are continuing to advertise their job vacancies ahead of the New Year, with the number of live job vacancies increasing by 7% in November. However, applications fell by 5.2% over the same period.

“Candidate confidence has taken a knock since this time last year and this could be the driving force behind last month’s jump in salaries,” he said.

“It is, however, good to see that businesses are still advertising their vacancies. And with many professionals adopting the ‘New Year, new me’ mantra in January, plus the impressive pay packets currently on offer, we expect to see application rates picking back up as we enter 2019.”

Earlier this year, CV library published data which showed that hospitality workers have the fastest-growing pay packets of any other sector, with wages rising by 10.4% by the end of 2017.

Around 330,000 members of staff are considering leaving the UK due to Brexit, which could result in a severe shortage of workers, according to the findings of a YouGov survey published in June 2018.

Almost 1 in 5 (18%) of hospitality managers reported that recruitment had been harder now than in April 2017, with 16% believing they will not be able to fulfil their staffing requirements over the next five years with domestic workers.

Overall, 53% of workers think that Brexit has made the UK “a less welcoming place to live and work”.

Payroll currently makes up just under 30% of the average bar or restaurant’s turnover, according to industry body UKHospitality.

A spokesperson told the drinks business the increase in wages point to a “restriction in the available workforce, which is why access to labour post-Brexit is vital for employers.”

“However, the data should be taken at face value as the hospitality sector provides a wide variety of roles across necessarily different pay grades so it may be difficult to apply data across the entire spectrum of jobs.”