Staffing Crisis as Government delay Technical qualification.
The Govenments commitment to encourage British people to consider the hospitality sector as a career, has been questioned today by the British Hospitallity Association, after plans for a new qualification has been delayed.
The Government has put back the introduction of the proposed catering and hospitality T-Level qualification to September 2022, a year after the end of freedom of movement, propting questions to be asked of the education Miister Ann Milton.
At Trenchers Catering we rely on well trained catering staff and would love to see this qualification in place sooner, so we can have a bigger pool of better trained candidates to fill our requirements as a business.
In a letter sent to Immigration minister Brandon Lewis by Ufi Ibrahim she wrote: ”We are not in a position to fill these vacancies without hiring non-UK workers. This is due to the fact that the UK is currently at near full employment and because the educational system does not encourage young people to consider a career in hospitality.
She added that if migratory flows for workers from the EU and beyond were severely curtailed, the hospitality industry would likely contract, costing jobs and growth. According to a KPMG report commissioned by the BHA, the industry needs an additional 60,000 workers a year to power growth in addition to the 200,000 workers needed to replace churn. It said that a key part of its 10-year-strategy for job creation was to attract people direct from education.
We need the education minister and the immigration minister to talk to each other to resolve the delay, and help the catering and Hospitality Industry thrive in the coming years with better trained British staff filling the many hospitality roles that are going to be available throughout the sector.