Jersey’s population controls are ‘damaging’ to hospitality sector

Gerald Fletcher, chief executive of the JHA, has today called upon the States to reform ‘unworkable’ employment restrictions to enable the industry to grow.

Under current regulations, employers in Jersey are only able to take on ‘registered employees’ – individuals who have lived in the Island less than five years – if they have a licence to do so.

Following a consultation this year, Mr Fletcher claims the laws are hampering growth in their sector because he says they struggled to recruit local staff and face ongoing restrictions on the number of employees they can recruit from outside the Island.

JHA chief executive officer Gerald Fletcher

Mr Fletcher said: ‘How can we hope to drive economic growth when you’re putting unworkable and damaging employment restrictions on the number of staff who will service that very growth?

‘The law works against innovation and growth and has penalised the hospitality industry and other sectors of the Jersey economy since its inception.’

He added that the Economic Development Department should push forward with reform to the regulations.

And he said that the Social Security Department’s Back to Work employment scheme was failing to deliver employees into the hospitality sector.

He claims that the scheme, which is aimed at getting jobseekers back into work, put 249 jobseekers through hospitality training last year at a total cost of £322,858. However, Mr Fletcher said only 49 of them had found and maintained work in hospitality since, which he calculated as an average cost of £6,588 per person now employed in the sector.

Mr Fletcher said: ‘The States-led employment schemes are not working for our sector of the economy.

Back to Work head Sophie Le Sueur

‘There clearly is a cultural issue that cannot be overcome at present with the registered unemployed or those actively seeking work.

‘As a result, there has been much pain for very little gain to the hospitality industry and there are many businesses struggling with reduced employment licenses and overall recruitment.

‘We are very dismayed with the current position and recommend immediate action to do something about the root of the problem – the application of the law itself.’

In response to Mr Fletcher’s comments, Back to Work head Sophie Le Sueur called his figures into question and said that her department’s key aim was getting people into employment.

‘Mr Fletcher’s figures are based on some very specific questions he asked us – we actually got 390 people into work in hospitality in 2014,’ she said.

‘A lot of them did not require training and were outside the figure of 249. Many of those who went through hospitality training also ended working up in different sectors where the skills they learnt were still useful.

‘For example, many of them were trained as hotel receptionists, but went on to reception work in banks.’

Economic Development Assistant Minister Murray Norton, who has a background working in the hospitality industry, said he was ‘extremely surprised and disappointed’ by Mr Fletcher’s remarks.

‘The Economic Development Minister Lyndon Farnham and I met with Mr Fletcher and his colleagues just a couple of weeks ago,’ he said.

‘We listened to the concerns they had, the meeting was very positive and they all left the meeting saying that we were very helpful – Mr Fletcher knows that we are working to address the problems his industry is facing.

‘With regard to reducing the amount of licences, in some cases we have had to do so because some businesses have had more licences than they need.’

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