Vicki Lee, CEO, Hospitality New Zealand: “At a time when domestic and international visitor numbers are increasing, the quality and availability of our hospitality and tourism product is vital and a key ingredient is good staff.”
The hospitality industry would love to employ Kiwis – but there aren’t enough to go around, said Hospitality New Zealand CEO Vicki Lee. Hospitality NZ is concerned at the recent ground swell of apparent opposition to skilled migrant workers working in the hospitality and tourism sectors.
“The Government’s recent immigration changes to the skilled migrant category, which increased the points threshold from 140 to 160 points, is really concerning particularly if it makes it even more difficult to attract skilled chefs to New Zealand” says Lee. “Globally there is a massive shortage of chefs, so we are not only competing with the New Zealand industry we are also competing with the rest of the world.”
“At a time when domestic and international visitor numbers are increasing, the quality and availability of our hospitality and tourism product is vital and a key ingredient is good staff.”
Coupled with the recent immigration changes, the Salvation Army has recently released a report titled ‘What Next’, which suggests migrant workers as one of the main reasons for persistent unemployment in 15-24 year olds.
“It is worrying that we are seeing such a ground swell of opposition to skilled migrant workers. We feel that the Salvation Army report makes a tenuous connection between youth unemployment and migrant workers when the bigger barriers to youth employment in our sector are that of education and literacy levels, the aptitude and attitude required to work in a people facing service industry like ours, and appropriate career pathways into the industry from secondary school,” Ms Lee said.
“We know how hard our near 3000 members work to attain, train and retain staff and I frequently hear the comment, ‘if we could find the right Kiwis, with the right attitude, we would snap them up’, but often they simply aren’t available in the numbers needed.”
“Migrant workers should not be seen as a negative for the industry or the country, rather as a valuable addition to the authentic kiwi hospitality that we are so good at providing. For tourism and hospitality some of the skills these workers bring to the table are invaluable, particularly with regard to language capability. These skills compliment those of the New Zealanders working in the industry.”
“Holiday arrivals for the China market were up 29% year end August 2016 to 311,424 and there is no sign of it slowing down. The industry needs people who can enhance the visitor experience by being able to speak the same language or have an appreciation for the various culinary and cultural needs of these visitors. If we can grow this resource at home, that’s fantastic, but until supply meets demand for these unique skills we must be able to access them globally.”
“As an organisation we are constantly looking at ways to attract New Zealanders to the industry, with recent initiatives including the presentation of eight Hospitality NZ/SKY Future Leader Scholarships.”
Scholarship recipients have the opportunity to go on and attain a National Diploma in Hospitality Level 5 (Operational Management).
Ms Lee adds, “At this year’s Future Leaders Day, held in Auckland recently, we had the pleasure of hosting over 20 students from Dine Academy. These young adults fall in the 16-25 age group and were invited to attend the sessions and check out the industry. It was great to have them come along and to see their enthusiasm for the industry after a day of hearing from our industry leaders. I really hope I see them working in our industry in the future”.
