Last week, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) published a list of 40 top jobs in ten key occupations. ‘Careers of the future’ is a guide intended to assist those helping young people with their career decisions. The guide includes care workers, electricians, tram and train drivers and farmers. However, no hospitality and tourism occupations were included.
Key challenge
“This is concerning,” says Simon Tarr, Managing Director of People 1st. “It highlights a key challenge we have as an industry. We are a huge employer. By 2020 we project that we will need to recruit an additional 844,000 people, yet despite this the hospitality and tourism industry didn’t get a mention. This highlights that we need to work harder and together to sell the opportunities of working in the sector.”
Short term jobs not career pathways
The jobs were identified based on three indicators: pay, job opportunities and business needs. However, they excluded entry level jobs for young people and have focused on those occupations offering longer term career paths
“This is at the heart of the problem,” says Tarr. “We are perceived as only offering short-term job opportunities and not career pathways. However, our analysis shows that of the 843,800 people we need to recruit by 2020, 165,700 jobs are projected to be in managerial roles and 49,300 in craft roles. This means that just over a quarter of the sector’s recruitment in the next six years is going to be for higher skilled workers. This compares to 140,000 in construction and 50,000 in financial services.”
Need to showcase…
“We need to be much better at not only showcasing the speed in which we can promote people who are on lower skilled roles into enjoyable and lasting careers, but the variety of career opportunities we have on offer. This needs a concerted effort from everyone; employers and industry bodies alike must come together and collaborate on getting these messages out to job centres, schools, colleges and universities.
“We do not need to start from scratch, but can build on the excellent work of initiatives such as the BHA’s Big Conversation and the Hospitality Guild career portal , which showcases career pathways on offer in the industry. This year alone the portal has engaged over 100,000 individuals, and over 30 leading industry employers are using the site to promote their vacancies, alongside the hospitality apprenticeship vacancies advertised by NAS.
“I believe that, following the suggestion of the Tourism Council, we must work together on the development and delivery of a hard hitting campaign that unites key industry brands and brings together key partners to promote the breadth of opportunities the industry can offer.”
About People 1st
People 1st identifies industry needs across the hospitality, tourism, leisure, travel, passenger transport and retail industries and, working in partnership with employers, develops solutions that increase performance through people.
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