POT WASH JOB £500 WELCOME

Staff crisis in kitchens

POT washers are being offered £500 signing-on fees by hotel bosses hit by staff shortages.

The hospitality industry has 164,000 unfilled posts due to Brexit and Covid.

As well as offering “golden hellos” for dish-washing jobs, hotels and restaurants in tourist resorts are paying thousands of pounds to attract chefs from overseas.

Hyatt hotels are offering

£500 sign-ons to kitchen porters who wash dishes and fetch and carry.

Starbucks are also offering £500 joining bonuses for roles such as baristas.

Elsewhere, Big Mamma – a group of

Italian restaurants in London – is giving bartenders a £1,000 joining bonus, and there’s a £1,000 referral bonus scheme for friends they help to recruit.

TGI Friday’s is handing out £1,000 bonuses to chefs with no previous experience for roles on Jersey.

In December, there were 7.8 roles open per 100 hospitality jobs, says the

Office for National Statistics. It was the highest level on record.

At Vale Holiday Parks in Aberystwyth, owner Thomas Scarrott hired five chefs from India this year after struggling to find staff.

For each overseas chef, it costs him £5,000 to £7,000 in visas, travel and recruitment fees, but he said he was left with no choice.

At a recruitment day, just two people showed up. Mr Scarrott said: “People believe we’re trying to bring people from overseas because it’s cheaper. That is not the case at all – we pay the same wages. “It works out a lot more expensive to do it this way.”

According to data from international agency COREcruitment, chef roles being advertised at £45,000 a year would have attracted a £35,000 salary two years ago.