UK Chef Shortage Threatens Hospitality Trade Ahead of the Olympics

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The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will present a crucial opportunity for the UK hospitality sector to shine on the global stage. Industry and government leaders are buoyant about the industry’s potential for further growth, which as one of the fastest growing sectors is critical to the country’s financial health. Yet the bright future of the hospitality sector is currently threatened by a shortage of one key ingredient - the skilled chef.

Despite varied employment opportunities and the number of applicants to fill these roles generally increasing across the sector, chef recruitment and retention continues to challenge hospitality businesses. For example, according to Caterer.com data, chef roles make up four out of 10 of the most advertised roles - and yet each position attracts an average of just nine applicants. This is significantly low when compared to reception roles attracting an average of 60 applicants and waiting staff positions attracting around 59 applicants per job post.

Caterer.com's latest Hospitality Employment Index shows a massive increase in the amount of chef and head chef jobs being advertised in the past year. Yet these highly skilled roles continue to attract the fewest number of relevant applicants; whereas less skilled roles, like porter, receptionist and waiting staff, prompt extremely high numbers of applicants.

The total number of unfilled chef vacancies reached 5,582 in 2010, with employers reporting a lack of key skills among cooks, such as 'knife skills, prep stocks and sources from scratch, poultry and meat dishes from scratch, team working and communication skills' in a sector skills assessment by People 1st*.

In less than 200 days the UK's catering industry will be expected to serve a total of 14 million meals at the most celebrated sporting event in the world. So what can be done?

Recent reforms to chef qualifications has led to the development of Diplomas in Professional Cookery and revisions to the Apprenticeship in Professional Cookery for workplace based learning. While the immediate future depends on more a greater number of new recruits going through such programmes, today's skills shortage must also be addressed through more effective retention and development of the catering industry's current workforce.

Caterer.com Director, Ian Burke, asserts that this period in the run up to the Olympics is crucial: "Along with adequately preparing for the Olympics, hospitality businesses should use this moment in time as an opportunity to recruit, train and progress staff for the coming years.

"We're seeing that many managers are putting interesting and engaging staff benefit programmes in place in a bid to boost staff retention. Improved employee training and involvement, through the likes of consultations and appraisals - as well as financial incentives - are key areas where businesses can improve staff retention."

It's also important that hospitality employers take note of the trends that are developing amongst jobseekers. In a recent analysis of the online habits of hospitality job seekers, Caterer.com discovered that 83% of jobseekers use mobile internet with 49% of respondents using mobile internet or apps to search for jobs. Further highlighting the growing movement towards online recruitment, 13% of new hires claim that they secured their jobs through a social media site. These figures, along with statistics on the current chef shortage are presented in an infographic on the Caterer.com blog. See below image for low resolusion infographic and embed high resolution version on your own site, with this code:

<a href="http://blog.caterer.com/2011/15/12/where-have-all-the-chefs-gone-olympics-catering-jobs/"><img src="http://blog.caterer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Caterer_ChefShortage_small.jpg" title="Where Have All the Chefs Gone?"></a>

Notes to Editor

*People's 1st Sector Skills Assessment for the Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism Sector 2010 - UK, page 60 - 67.