Can hospitality boot camps solve restaurant recruitment woes?

Plans have been floated to fill the approximately 100,000 vacancies in the UK’s hospitality sector by introducing “boot camps” to train the unemployed in how to work in pubs, bars and restaurants.

The hospitality sector’s troubles with finding staff to fill front of house roles and positions in the kitchen are well-documented. According to data published by the Office for National Statistics on 11 July, there are currently around 5.3 vacancies per 100 employee jobs in ‘accommodation & food service activities’, a marginal decline on the 5.5 vacancies figure from February to May this year, but still the highest proportion of any industry in the data set. From September to December 2021 it peaked at 7.5, whereas at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic (March to May 2020) it was only at 1.1.

Now, according to a report from The Telegraph, the government is planning on trialling a military-inspired scheme that will offer Job Centre applicants a crash course in the basics of food preparation and food safety. The article makes no mention of the other skill that comes up in every work shift – dealing with the general public.

Alun Cairns, Conservative MP for the Vale of Glamorgan and head of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, said: “There’s a significant number of people that are economically inactive, and the hospitality sector offers an ideal opportunity for employment…This boot camp could play a key part in developing young people who are far away from the workplace.”

UK Hospitality CEO Kate Nicholls was quoted in The Telegraph piece as noting how working in the sector can “take somebody with no experience, and rapidly upskill them”, suggesting that the scheme is primarily aimed at younger people seeking work. Last year, the trade body unveiled its own nationwide workforce strategy, with a focus on the long-term prospects of a career in the industry.

Whether young people opt for a career in hospitality, with its unsociable hours, is a different matter, but it was recently reported that workers’ wages have risen by 53% over the last decade, with the biggest leap taking place between 2021 and 2022.

Some hospitality bosses have suggested that experience trumps youth and that the secret solution to staff shortages might be tapping into the over 50s demographic.