The Covid pandemic was particularly harsh on the hospitality industry, with many venues forced to shut their doors for prolonged periods, with others having to endure restrictive conditions on opening. Research from the University of Houston highlights how bitter many hospitality workers are about the situation, even after Covid restrictions have passed.

The research explains that during the lockdown periods, around 8 million hospitality jobs were lost, which had a significant impact on both the industry and the individuals concerned. It was undoubtedly the hardest-hit sector in the entire economy.

“I don’t think any industry was prepared, but the hospitality industry really wasn’t prepared,” the researchers explain. “Their solution to cutting costs and saving the business was to let people go and then try to rehire them when it was over.”

Difficult recovery

While the rest of the economy has largely recovered, and even surpassed pre-pandemic levels of employment, the hospitality sector is still below pre-pandemic levels by around 1.3 million jobs. After speaking to several hundred hospitality workers, the researchers began to understand why this was.

“Your job, your livelihood is taken away, so a natural response is fear for your future,” they explain. “But we found anger was a bigger driver in explaining why these workers aren’t coming back. They were angry over how the industry responded to the pandemic.”

This marks a distinct problem for the sector, as skilled workers are leaving (or have left) the sector to find work in other industries, making it increasingly difficult for hospitality businesses to find the talent they need.

“By and large, people who were laid off or furloughed during the pandemic probably moved on to different industries altogether,” the researchers explain. “Something more stable and less dependent on those in-person interactions where their skills were transferable, like business or real estate.”

Existing challenges

This talent shortage sits on top of a large number of existing challenges, not least in terms of attracting and retaining highly skilled workers. The researchers believe this is largely to do with the nature of the business.

“Workers in the hospitality industry already had it hard, whether it’s low wages or having to work weekends, overnights and holidays,” they explain. “It’s a very demanding job, so to go through all of that and then be laid off was kind of the last straw.”

The authors argue that the only way out of this hole is to start offering higher compensation, do a better job of protecting the health of workers, and offer more attractive benefits. Central to these efforts should be a concerted attempt to rebuild trust with the workforce again.

“It’s important that organizations understand this anger among workers and build better communication with them,” they explain. “If there’s another crisis in the industry, they’ll want to know there’s a plan in place and that they’ll be protected, financially, emotionally and physically.”

There remains a degree of goodwill across the hospitality workforce, with people still motivated to work in the sector due to the unique benefits on offer, but it’s clear that the sector needs to do more to attract workers back.