Ten phone calls told Koura Lodge chef and host Arun Varkey-Jacob all he needed to know about the staff shortages that the tourism and hospitality sectors are grappling with now.
They were all former employers, all asking if he could return.
Varkey-Jacob said he’d worked at 10 hospitality venues in the tourism hub of Rotorua before taking up his current role at the luxury Koura Lodge.
“Every owner has given me a call to ask if I want to start back,” he said.
READ MORE:
* New immigration barrier for Nelson construction industry, says lawyer
* The great worker drought – Booming job market good for workers, bad for bosses
* ‘Bring back the backpackers’ screams the hospitality sector looking for staff
* Hospitality’s post-Covid reset: Workers say change needed
* Marlborough keen to get wine industry skills on the visa fast-track after regional lists announced
“There’s nobody in the market.”
His anecdotal experience is backed by some serious job market data too.
“Job ads in hospitality and tourism, for example, rose an incredible 36 per cent month-on-month” said SEEK NZ country manager Rob Clark.
He said their August industry insights found all regions had seen an increase in job adverts apart from Canterbury, and that “industries driving the greatest growth in August were hospitality and tourism”.
To put the 36 per cent leap in context, the second-highest jump in adverts was for the manufacturing, transport and logistics sector, up 10 per cent.
Andrew Wilson, who as chief executive of RotoruaNZ is charged with bringing visitors to the city, said staff shortages were a big issue for tourism and hospitality ventures at present, especially with the busy summer months looming.
He said they’re short big numbers too.
“Based on a survey RotoruaNZ undertook in June this year, asking tourism and hospitality businesses what their needs were heading into summer we estimated that we needed about 500 employees as a minimum – across housekeeping, front line operations, conferences, events, Christmas functions, front of house, chefs, supervisors/team leaders, porters etc.”
It’s to address this shortage that they joined forces with Student Job Search in a first of its kind push to get young people into the sector.
Wilson said one issue causing the shortages was the flow-on effect of two years of closed borders, with the local impact exacerbated by the lack of international hospitality students at Rotorua’s Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology.
“These students are traditionally keen to work while studying and on graduation many of these students work in the sector, often working towards permanent residency,” he said.
“Restoring this pipeline is critically important to the local hospitality sector in particular.”
Borders opening can be a double-edged sword, however.
Fiona Gates, owner of Raglan’s Harbourview Hotel, said when the border reopened “we literally lost six people”.
“Everyone had been trapped for three years, young, dynamic people.”
She said they needed an extra nine staff, and had recently recruited three people from Auckland.
She said employers needed to be a bit more creative in the current market, offering better pay, friendlier roster hours and a “good culture” to draw employees in.
They’re short in the home of the Hobbits too, according to Hobbiton Movie Set general manager Shayne Forrest.
He said as international visitors return they have increased their staff numbers from 60 to 140.
“We still require another 50 or so right across the business before summer.”
He said there were lots of good tourism and hospitality staff in New Zealand, “but just not enough to go around when all businesses are in the recruitment phase”.
The Government can help too, said Wilson.
“In the medium term, adjusting the immigration settings for international students studying tourism and hospitality at Toi Ohoma [would help],” he said.
“Current immigration settings for students are out of balance with the number of New Zealanders seeking to work or study in this sector alongside the potential to make productivity gains, and some change is required to get the balance right.”
Both Tourism Minister Stuart Nash and Tourism New Zealand declined to answer questions from Stuff on the staff shortage issues.
Stuff was referred to the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, and Nash’s office also referred to a September 2 press release about the launch of a $2m scheme “that connects jobseekers with employers, to help address the workforce shortage in the industry and accelerate economic recovery”.
National Tourism spokesperson and Rotorua MP Todd McClay was, unsurprisingly, more forthcoming.
“They’re desperately crying out for staff, all over, but it’s quite acute in the main centres,” he said.
He said he was hearing stories of hotels unable to let out rooms due to cleaning staff shortages, and restaurants having to warn diners of a potential hour wait for food.
McClay said the sector was distraught, and Nash was “Washing his hands. . . saying everything is OK, that’s not the feeling on the ground”.
© 2022 Stuff Limited