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Changing attitudes to work
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financial services sector, few young Islanders set their sights on any sort of
career in the hospitality industry.
Traditionally, work in hotels and restaurants was seen as poorly paid and very much the province of immigrants. In addition, potential for career advancement was seen as limited.
However, although hospitality jobs may still be viewed as a last option by many Jersey jobseekers, the attitude to the skills displayed by waiters, sommeliers and bar staff in other parts of Europe is often very different. Work in the sector is seen as a vocation rather than a way of making ends meet.
But the picture here in the Island is shifting. Jobs are still available in finance, but there is far less demand for staff with limited skills – partly because of the economic downturn but also because the Jersey industry has become more sophisticated.
Against this background – and no doubt because there is room for attitudes to hospitality to change – efforts to recruit Islanders rather than workers from elsewhere are now being made by leading players in the tourism and catering sector.
Responding to the government’s Back to Work programme, hoteliers have pledged to give priority to local applicants for at least 130 jobs that currently need to be filled. Some posts are seasonal, but permanent positions are also available.
Although filling 130 vacancies will make a relatively small dent on the present record rate of unemployment, the hospitality initiative is both worthwhile and laudable. It also represents a course of action which should be emulated by other industries, such as agriculture, which tend to attract employees from outside the Island.
There must, of course, be willingness on the part of potential employees to accept employment that they might not have considered in other circumstances. That said, the low rate of pay in certain jobs is less likely to be a deterrent now that work is in such short supply.
Meanwhile, as well as offering people a chance to work, hoteliers and others in associated businesses should consider the career development paths that they can offer. There is no better way of motivating a workforce than by making it clear that high standards and achievement can be rewarded by promotion.
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