Agency heads to Kenya to find hospitality staff

Agency heads to Kenya to find hospitality staff

The move comes amid a dire shortage of potential staff for the hospitality sector in the Island, which has threatened a reduction in services or closure of some businesses.

Working with the Jersey Hospitality Association and several providers, GR8 will start to bring successful candidates to the Island in staggered cohorts from early 2020. They will work in the Island on nine-month non-EU hospitality work permits.

The government changed immigration regulations earlier this year to help
ease the recruitment crisis for hospitality, issuing 150 short-term seasonal work permits.

Lee Madden, managing director of GR8, decided the best way to select the right candidates was to meet and interview them face to face. He said: ‘Hospitality and Jersey does not have enough resource to provide the Island with a staffing solution in 2020. By travelling to Nairobi, establishing strong relationships with Utalii College, for now and into the future, we will be able to offer our industry a professional, reliable and reputable staff resource to go some way towards addressing the critical staff shortages in our industry.

‘We will ensure that the candidates selected for the roles in Jersey meet all the legal requirements, have a passion for their profession and have researched Jersey and our own hospitality industry so that they can be the best they can be working here on their nine-month contracts.’

Mr Madden said that GR8 had tried to recruit local staff, and that hospitality businesses worked with schools and Highlands College to encourage young people into the industry, but there were not enough candidates to fill the vacancies.

This week there were 120 hospitality vacancies advertised on the gov.je website. The recruitment agency also said that the cost of travelling to, and living in, Jersey, licencing and accommodation meant that it had become difficult to attract staff from Europe.

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