Cookery students from the Universal College of Learning (UCOL) in Whanganui joined front-of-house students from Palmerston North in November, to put on a six-course degustation dinner as their two-to-three-year courses came to an end.
“This is where you take your basic skills and you develop them into your own dishes. So tonight’s six-course degustation dinner is all from dishes that the students have actually designed themselves,” said Gina Guigou, a senior lecturer at UCOL.
But Guigou is concerned about her graduates entering the hospitality industry, which currently faces a severe staffing shortage.
“There are people who want to go into the industry, but they’re not necessarily getting a fabulous experience because there’s not enough staff. So they’re getting those long hours,” she said.
Guigou attributes the crisis in part to the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to widespread job losses in the hospitality sector.
“The hospitality industry is crying out for chefs. It’s so easy to get a job. You can just walk in and you may have had no kitchen experience and you can start cooking,” she said.
While it may be easy to secure a job in the hospitality industry, Guigou emphasises the importance of proper training for those considering hospitality as a career.
“You can always just go into the industry instead of doing some training, but coming into a training institution, you’ll find that we will actually dedicate classes to specific things.
“You go out with a raft of knowledge and skills that then you can actually put into play wherever you are,” she said.
Business owner and chef Richard Wilson agrees there is a staffing shortage, but is unsure why.
“Whether or not it’s an industry that’s hard for kids to get into or they get into it and they find it’s not quite what they expected. A combination of many things,” he said.
But across the road at Porridge Watson, Tony Sundman says he’s had no trouble finding staff for his craft beer and live music venue.
“We’re very flexible with people going away on holiday, going to do their own things with their family and stuff, and then work secondary. I think it makes hospitality much more enjoyable,” said Sundman.
Sundman’s bad experiences in the hospitality industry have motivated him to create a positive working environment for his staff.
“I’ve worked in some terrible bars, bars where bosses don’t really treat their staff right.
“We pay our staff the living wage. That can go up incrementally with time and skill,” he said.
The small business owner appreciates working alongside skilled employees, but he’s not a huge fan of hospitality school. Sundman believes the most important part of working in hospitality is experience in the workplace.
“We’ve had people that have done courses before and they’re not really fast paced enough and can’t think on their feet. They know how to make a coffee, pour a beer maybe, but you don’t really learn until you’re on the job,” he said.
But Wilson says hospitality school does play an important role.
“Coming to a hospo school gives you a basis of classical training, build up some skills first before you jump directly into the industry,” said Wilson.
Wilson has hired UCOL students while they were completing their courses and he says he would consider paying graduates better money than with no experience.
“I would pay graduates slightly more than a guy that’s walked off the street because they’ve obviously achieved some courses and they’ve shown that they’ve committed themselves to the industry.”
Wilson pays above the minimum wage of $21.20 an hour, but does not think staff should be paid extra for working weekends.
“If they’re coming into hospitality, I think it’s expected that you work on weekends.
“Students that are starting out like this, working for me at the moment. I pay them a training wage, but then when once they come on, they start slightly above minimum wage at the moment. So $23, $24, whatever it is, an hour,” said Wilson.
The training wage in New Zealand is $16.96 an hour. This applies to employees aged 20 and over who are completing recognised industry training.
Chloe Anne-King, founder of Raise the Bar Hospitality Union, is against the training wage and believes that low wages and poor working conditions are the main contributing factors to New Zealand’s hospitality industry staffing shortage.
“Already the minimum wage is not enough to live on in this country.
“If you are paying your workers a training wage, you are leaving them in poverty. For example, I had to get one of our members a food grant the other day. They’re working and they still need welfare. So what does that tell you about our industry?” she said.
“We are going to see more staff shortages if employers in this industry don’t up their games. If they’re not gonna offer penal rates for working weekends, if they’re not going to lift their wages to livable incomes.”
The union leader recognises the value in hospitality training, but says school graduates are not necessarily paid better than others.
“You get these graduates that are highly skilled, highly trained, being offered basically poverty wages.”
“This is a highly skilled industry and absolutely there should be qualifications that could be gained from it. What needs to happen is hospo employers need to start valuing those qualifications.” she said.
Anne-King has some words of advice for hospitality employers who are struggling to find staff.
“Start paying livable incomes to your workers. Start ensuring that they’re getting all their rest of meal breaks. It’s basic stuff like start offering nutritious meals on shift, actually roster your workers on for shifts that are not 14-hour back-to-b‘bread and butter’ suggestions for the new PMack doubles.
“Every day at Raise the Bar, we are speaking with hospo workers that are burnt out. They’re injured. Those injuries happen because they’re fatigued because they’ve been pushed to the breaking point.
“It really does come down to working conditions that are positive and we work to feel safe and valued.”
In Australia, casual hospitality workers aged 20 and over are paid a minimum of $26.73 an hour. That rises as staff gain experience.
Australian hospitality workers also get extra pay for unsocial hours. From 7pm to midnight, staff are paid an extra $2.48 an hour, or an extra $3.71 after midnight. On Saturdays, the base casual rate is $32.07 an hour, Sundays are $37.42 an hour, and on public holidays the starting rate is $53.45 an hour.
However, in New Zealand, the minimum wage of $21.20 applies any time and any day, apart from time and a half on public holidays.
But despite offering better remuneration than New Zealand, the hospitality industry in Australia is facing a staffing shortage of its own due to a lack of skilled workers, competition for employees from other industries, and changes in immigration policies.
Kate Turner, part owner of Gertrude and Alice Cafe Bookstore in Bondi, says many other cafes in the area are struggling to find staff.
“Yes we have been struggling to find staff since [Covid-19] and it’s also the quality of staff, it seems sometimes we have a load of people apply but with not enough experience.
“Pre-Covid we were spoilt for choice, now you can barely get someone to even turn up for an interview,” said Turner.
The staffing shortage is also having a financial impact on the iconic Bondi Cafe.
“Prices have increased but not just because of wages, but also because the cost of everything has gone up. We get price increase emails weekly now when before [Covid-19] we barely got them at all.
“I honestly don’t know how some small business affords penalty rates! I guess that’s why a lot of cafes close on public holidays these days. We reduce the costs by working ourselves as the owners of the business on higher-penalty days, but with reduced hours, and it’s still a struggle,” said Turner.
With unemployment at a record low in Australia, people are choosing to work in industries that offer higher pay and better working conditions.
“Who wants to work the hours the hospitality people work. You know, the long shifts, they’re dirty and the hot kitchen,” said Guigou.
Entering the hospitality industry is a hard slog for anyone, but with New Zealand opening its borders and the event calendar busier than ever, UCOL graduates will have no shortage of job opportunities.
Academy chairman Matthew Doyle says it is 'prudent to keep all options open'.