Why hospitality staff are getting out
The sector is hiring again, but disillusioned former staff hope the newcomers won’t be treated as badly as they were. Anuja Nadkarni reports.
The Covid-19 pandemic has deepened the cracks in the hospitality industry, workers say. After working in hospitality for 12 years in Hamilton and Auckland, Amanda Hassan said job uncertainty after the pandemic had led her to change careers.
Hassan started studying towards a psychology degree last year after struggling to find work in hospitality following the lockdown.
‘‘It’s been really challenging to find a job. I’ve dropped hours to part-time and decided to study because a future in hospitality means you’re either running or owning a venue. You can’t really go on from that point,’’ she said.
‘‘When you’re a bartender you’re aiming for duty manager because you’re told there will be greater job security and better pay. I finally got to that tier and none of that was really true.
‘‘I was running a bar and earning $22 an hour until my contract ended during the first lockdown.’’
After major job cuts in the hospitality sector last year, the industry has started rehiring people.
According to the latest Trade Me jobs data hospitality and tourism job listings were up 5 per cent in Auckland.
Other sectors had a drop in advertised jobs. But Hassan said she no longer saw hospitality as a career as employers continued to pay staff who had been in the industry for several years the minimum wage or just above it.
‘‘A career is doing something you enjoy, working somewhere you can contribute ideas. But the majority of places in hospitality don’t treat you well enough. At venues, you’re just a puppet, just there to pour the drinks.’’
The minimum wage is currently $18.90 but is due to rise to $20 this year. The living wage – a rate that is said to allow the recipient to participate fully in society – is $22.10 an hour.
Industry workers’ advocate Chloe Ann-King said any employer who understood how expensive it was to live in New Zealand would pay staff a living wage.
‘‘Employers are complaining that Kiwis are too snobby to work in hospitality jobs, but they’re only willing to offer us minimum wage,’’ Ann-King said.
‘‘If hospitality employers continue creating such abysmal working conditions that are driving people from working in the industry, they’re going to see more shortages.’’
Ellsie Coles of Christchurch has spent five years in hospitality but she too is working towards another career.
Coles is studying law at the University of Canterbury.
She said exploitation was rife in the industry, with employers preferring to hire young workers and those who did not know their legal rights.
Wage theft was a business model – staff often worked unpaid overtime and employers did not manage their breaks correctly, she said.
‘‘It’s much easier to exploit someone that’s never worked in hospitality before and train them exactly as you like,’’ Coles said.
‘‘With people getting sponsored work visas they are prime targets for exploitation. They are preferred over New Zealand workers because they don’t know laws.’’
Coles said Covid-19 had created greater job uncertainty.
‘‘During the level 4 lockdown workers were verbally abused by customers because our employer, a cafe, remained open.
‘‘Staff couldn’t do anything about it and there was no apology or public statement from our employer.’’
She said it was also disheartening to work in an industry seen as ‘‘low-skilled’’ despite many workers holding certificates and other hospitality qualifications.
Te Tangaroa Turnbull, a Kiwi chef living and working in Brisbane, said that when he moved back to New Zealand about five years ago after a stint in the United States, he was ‘‘horrified’’ to see training was not a priority for employers.
While working at an upmarket Wellington restaurant, Turnbull said he was stunned to find his colleagues had not been trained on how to properly preserve food, putting customers at risk of botulism.
At restaurants he had worked in overseas, food preservation was taught to young chefs when they were starting out.
‘‘If a restaurant cannot afford to train staff, much like if it can’t afford to pay fair wages, it doesn’t deserve to be in business,’’ he said.
Turnbull left New Zealand three years ago and said the hospitality industry was exploitative and plagued with ‘‘greedy employers’’ who were not willing to pay workers for their skills.
‘‘People don’t have enough money to pay rent and aren’t trained, but they are expected to perform to the highest standard.’’
Ann-King said there was an assumption among New Zealanders that hospitality workers were unskilled or uneducated.
‘‘When you look overseas, there is a different mentality. Hospitality work is seen as skilled labour. There’s more professionalism because training is thorough and people are valued.’’
But events industry worker Callum Riach still saw hospitality as a long-term career, despite Covid-19 making it hard to find full-time work.
Riach said he wanted to work his way up and take on a senior management role in the future.
‘‘Working in hospitality started out as a means to an end, but I’d like to rise up the ranks because there is money higher up, even though floor workers are living hand-to-mouth most of the time,’’ Riach said.
‘‘The perception that anyone can walk in and get a job is partly true. But you pick up enough skills working in it that you do it at a much higher level than anyone who was just walking in could. Everyone’s not cut out for it,’’ he said.
Restaurant Association chief executive Marisa
Bidois said the association was trying to fix issues the pandemic had highlighted, including a lack of training and fewer New Zealanders wanting to work in the industry.
Bidois said there needed to be career progression within the industry and a greater a focus to keep people in the sector and attract more New Zealanders to jobs.
She said about a year ago the association launched hospitality workers support initiative Tautoko Ha¯ pai O¯ .
It offered resources for workers to create their CVs, access to jobs and an opportunity to join the association’s displaced apprenticeship redeployment scheme.
Bidois said the association was working towards creating a career pathway template for workers and had started a pilot programme with the Ministry of Social Development to work with employers to train their employees so businesses could retain staff and keep them employed.
Hospitality consultant Sophie Gilmour said training was crucial for the industry to become more professional and appeal as a career path but it was also expensive for businesses.
Gilmour supported the Restaurant Association’s pilot initiative with MSD.
She said many restaurants felt overwhelmed or were financially struggling because of Covid-19, and training had fallen down the priority list.
‘‘When things aren’t profitable that just feels like a cost, rather than a short-term cost for a longterm benefit.’’
Riach said the one thing that needed to change immediately was the lack of respect.
‘‘If every manager in hospitality could respect their staff as human beings like you would expect in any other industry, we can start seeing some change.’’
Hassan agreed that the industry lacked respect. ‘‘Hire us as an investment, not to subsidise your business.’’