Wittenborg Online: Hospitality Sector Positive about Hiring Staff in Near Future

Hospitality Sector Positive about Hiring Staff in Near Future

by Wittenborg News - Friday, 15 May 2020, 2:29 PM

Less than Half Satisfied with Support from Governments to Hospitality Organisations

https://www.wittenborg.eu/hospitality-sector-positive-about-hiring-staff-near-future.htm

More than 75% of hospitality organisations believe they will start hiring staff again over the next 12 months, a quick survey by Hosco, the world's leading hospitality network, has revealed. This is good news for hospitality students at Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences for whom an internship in the sector is part of the curriculum, often leading to a job after their studies.

In the Netherlands, restaurants, bars, hotels and airlines have been some of the hardest hit businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. The survey by Hosco, done in the third week of April, confirms the consequences for job seekers. A graph shows that 90% of respondents said that their hiring plans were affected to a "great or extreme extent".

Hospitality studies, both bachelor's and master's, are some of the most popular programmes among prospective students at Wittenborg. In the last few weeks international alumni have, however, struggled to find or keep their jobs due to COVID-19, which was declared a pandemic on 12 March by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and have started a petition for the Dutch government to extend the 12-month orientation year (zoekjaar) afforded to graduates. This action has been supported by Wittenborg who also appealed to both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Higher Education.

These are some of the main findings of the Hosco survey:

On the one hand, 76% of respondents plan or expect to start hiring again over the next 12 months. On the other hand, 24% believe that their hiring plans will reactivate a year from now in the second quarter of 2021.
Employers are divided about recovering the size of the team they had before COVID-19. 52% expect to reach a normal headcount within the next 12 months, while 48% indicate that it will take them 12 to 24 months.
The main priority for employers, by far, is financial management (28%), followed by the health and safety of their staff (22%), and workforce engagement (14%). However, this is followed very closely by the importance employers give to upskilling and reskilling their employees (12%).
44% of respondents are "somewhat to very satisfied" with the support their government has offered to the hospitality industry. In contrast, 25% are "somewhat to very dissatisfied" with the level of support given, and 13% declared that there has been no support whatsoever.