Whitbread Group HRD: L&D 'key' to halting potential recruitment crisis

High levels of employee turnover within the hospitality and tourism sector could potentially bubble into a recruitment crisis.

A report by People 1^st has said that 993,000 employees will be needed by 2022. 870,000 of these employees needed to replace existing staff.

Louise Smalley, Group HR Director of Whitbread, said: “The hospitality and tourism sector has a major employee retention problem which costs £274m annually. This then creates skills gaps, which in turn leads to a productivity shortfall, where employees in the hospitality sector are 58% less productive on a per employee basis than the likes of manufacturing.”

This skills gap is leaving 68% of restaurants and hotels without a full roster of staff. A knock-on effect of this is a decline in productivity.